His source disproved the claim of the dubious source you kept citing.
We've already been over that. Lincoln had to keep the Union united, and had to talk out of both sides of his mouth. In 1864 with the war still going on, the Republicans in Congress voted to abolish slavery everywhere but were blocked by the party of Jefferson Davis. In 1865 with the war still going on, Congress voted to abolish slavery everywhere.
Yes we've been over that. Lincoln was not talking out of both sides of his mouth. He said openly and repeatedly he was not an abolitionist. He never said anything to the contrary before very late in the war. The same is true of the Republican Party in general. They went to great pains to make it clear they were not abolitionists. They were quite willing to protect slavery forever by express constitutional amendment and even to strengthen fugitive slave laws.
And that was meant to defend the Confederacy? I'll bet you can't even see what's wrong with what you posted.
No. It was meant to point out that John Brown and his band were terrorists and murderers as were the people who supported them - exactly as I said. Do you ever try anything other than strawman arguments and red herrings?
So were the people who harbored the resistance, according to the Nazis.
Analogy fail. Neither side were the Nazis or even close. Anybody who has read Mein Kampf knows Hitler was more sympathetic to the North than the South - he hated states' rights.
When did the Taliban attempt to free slaves?
The Taliban harbored OBL and Al Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks did they not?
They were traitors who sold their own people into slavery, so yes, siding with traitors to take them by force was an act of war.
They were the recognized rulers of those lands. You disapproving of them over 150 years later does not change that. There was no "act of war" in buying something the rulers of those lands were quite happy to sell. We can find it morally reprehensible, but that is different from being an act of war which it was not. Words have specific meanings.
How major? It had trickled down to nothing by the 1860s.
Very major. Read Complicity, how the North promoted, prolonged and profited from slavery. You can read several other books on the subject. Slave trading was THE largest industry in the Northeast for at least a century.
Not that your answer to this would excuse the Confederacy, but numbers?
Something like FIVE PERCENT of all slaves transported from Africa to the Western Hemisphere were sold in what is now the United States. The vast majority went to Brazil and the Caribbean. The Caribbean islands were disease ridden hellholes with staggering mortality rates. They needed constant replenishment with more slaves to keep the sugar plantations going.
You mean that football that Lucy tried to temp the Confederacy with, but unlike Charlie Brown they knew it was nothing?
I mean the constitutional amendment which the Republican Party and Lincoln supported and which gained a supermajority of both Houses of Congress after the Southern delegation had withdrawn. The one the original 7 seceding states rejected.
Details?
Already provided. Go back and read.
That was weak. It's not like they could have just boarded planes or hopped on buses and migrate North. The migration started slowly at first, then picked up as the Democrats passed oppressive laws in the South. You can look up the great migration for more on the history of that.
That was reality. People could move about and did throughout the 19th century when there were better opportunities elsewhere. Hell, tens of millions of Europeans sailed across the Atlantic Ocean. To imply that Blacks did not move North until late in the 19th century because of difficulty in being able to transport themselves is what is really weak.
And before you respond by saying the "great migration" didn't start until 1910, I know that, but migration itself started decades earlier and led up to that.
It did not start in any significant numbers until about 1890 when the Northern states finally lifted their exclusionary laws which had kept Blacks in the now devastated and impoverished Southern states.
The Republicans weren't abolitionists even though they voted to abolish slavery in Congress twice before the CW ended, and the South didn't secede over slavery even though they stated it several times and didn't give up slavery until after the war.
The Republicans weren't abolitionists and said so many times. They even supported slavery forever by express constitutional amendment and strengthened fugitive slave laws. Only 4 of the 12 states which seceded issued declarations of causes and of these all but Mississippi listed economic causes even though this was not unconstitutional while the Northern states violation of the Fugitive Slave Clause of the US Constitution was. They then turned down the bona fide offer of slavery forever by express constitutional amendment. The 5 states of the Upper South did not even secede until Lincoln started a war.
Like Cassius Clay who co-founded the Republican party?
Like Lincoln, Seward and practically every elected Republican officeholder.
You mean that amendment that was voted on mostly by Democrats, was signed by a Democrat president who is considered one of the biggest failures in US history, and never got more than 5 or 6 states to ratify it?
You mean the amendment that was written by a Republican Senator and which was orchestrated by the President Elect who was the de facto leader of the Republican Party and which lots of Republicans in Congress supported?
Then why did Jefferson Davis say they were in 1858?
There was heated rhetoric on both sides. What is indisputable is that the Republicans themselves openly said they were not abolitionists and did not support abolition.
Yes, and the Democrats, the party of Jefferson Davis, in the North voted to keep slavery in 1864. The voters responded by replacing many of them with Republicans.
Yes and this doesn't change the fact that Republicans were not abolitionists and did not come around to supporting abolition until late in the war.
"Howell Cobb, former general in Lee's army, and prominent pre-war Georgia politician: "If slaves will make good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong." [Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 835.]
Yet we know even from Union Army sources that many thousands of Blacks did fight in the Confederate Army.
A North Carolina newspaper editorial: "it is abolition doctrine . . . the very doctrine which the war was commenced to put down." [North Carolina Standard, Jan. 17, 1865; cited in Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 835.] Robert M.T. Hunter, Senator from Virginia, "What did we go to war for, if not to protect our property?"
"I tried all in my power to avert this war. I saw it coming, for twelve years I worked night and day to prevent it, but I could not. The North was mad and blind; it would not let us govern ourselves, and so the war came, and now it must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks, and his children seize the musket and fight our battle, unless you acknowledge our right to self government. We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for Independence, and that, or extermination." - President Jefferson Davis The Atlantic Monthly Volume 14, Number 83
“And slavery, you say, is no longer an element in the contest.” Union Colonel James Jaquess
“No, it is not, it never was an essential element. It was only a means of bringing other conflicting elements to an earlier culmination. It fired the musket which was already capped and loaded. There are essential differences between the North and the South that will, however this war may end, make them two nations.” Jefferson Davis
Davis rejects peace with reunion https://cwcrossroads.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/jefferson-davis-rejects-peace-with-reunion-1864/
Beginning in late 1862, James Phelan, Joseph Bradford, and Reuben Davis wrote to Jefferson Davis to express concern that some opponents were claiming the war "was for the defense of the institution of slavery" (Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, pp. 479-480, 765). They called those who were making this claim "demagogues." Cooper notes that when two Northerners visited Jefferson Davis during the war, Davis insisted "the Confederates were not battling for slavery" and that "slavery had never been the key issue" (Jefferson Davis, American, p. 524).
“Every man should endeavor to understand the meaning of subjugation before it is too late… It means the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern schoolteachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit objects for derision… It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties.” Maj. General Patrick R. Cleburne, CSA
"Next to the demands for safety and equality, the secessionist leaders emphasized familiar economic complaints. South Carolinians in particular were convinced of the general truth of Rhett's and Hammond's much publicized figures upon Southern tribute to Northern interests." (Allan Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, Ordeal of the Union, Volume 2, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1950, p. 332)
I struck out "add" and replaced it with "repeat". You didn't add anything, you just repeated the same nothing.
Hell, that's all you've been doing for a month.
His source disproved the claim of the dubious source you kept citing.
You're not off to a very good start. That quote WAS WP's rebuttal to my "dubious source". Maybe you and WP can debate whether JD walked back his support of slavery.
Yes we've been over that. Lincoln was not talking out of both sides of his mouth. He said openly and repeatedly he was not an abolitionist. He never said anything to the contrary before very late in the war. The same is true of the Republican Party in general. They went to great pains to make it clear they were not abolitionists.
Speech of Jefferson Davis before the Mississippi Legislature, Nov. 16, 1858
They were quite willing to protect slavery forever by express constitutional amendment and even to strengthen fugitive slave laws.
Then why didn't they ratify it when they could have?
Analogy fail. Neither side were the Nazis or even close. Anybody who has read Mein Kampf knows Hitler was more sympathetic to the North than the South - he hated states' rights.
Like the Confederacy, Hitler thought owning slaves was one of those states' rights.
The Taliban harbored OBL and Al Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks did they not?
Yes. Did the terrorists they harborded try to free slaves?
They were the recognized rulers of those lands.
Recognized especially by the human traffickers and the slave owners who wanted their product.
You disapproving of them over 150 years later does not change that. There was no "act of war" in buying something the rulers of those lands were quite happy to sell.
It most certainly was an act of war against a people, committed by the slave owners, the slave traders, and their own government.
We can find it morally reprehensible, but that is different from being an act of war which it was not. Words have specific meanings.
A lot of people saw it this way then. The slave holding states were clearly on the wrong side of history. As you said, "Practically every other western country got rid of slavery via compensated emancipation - and without bloodshed." Very major. Read Complicity, how the North promoted, prolonged and profited from slavery.
"The North" didn't promote or prolong slavery. It was some bad actors in the Northern states and some of the border states who did this.
You can read several other books on the subject. Slave trading was THE largest industry in the Northeast for at least a century.
That is refuted by you below.
Something like FIVE PERCENT of all slaves transported from Africa to the Western Hemisphere were sold in what is now the United States.
Some numbers say it was a lower percentage, but it still amounted to millions. As I said, being such a low percentage doesn't excuse the Confederacy.
I mean the constitutional amendment which the Republican Party and Lincoln supported
The majority of the Republicans voted against it, and those that voted for it did so in an attempt to prevent what happened, and with the understanding it didn't give the slave holding states any protections they didn't already have at that time. The Constitution already implicitly protected slavery.
That was reality. People could move about and did throughout the 19th century when there were better opportunities elsewhere. Hell, tens of millions of Europeans sailed across the Atlantic Ocean. To imply that Blacks did not move North until late in the 19th century because of difficulty in being able to transport themselves is what is really weak...It did not start in any significant numbers until about 1890 when the Northern states finally lifted their exclusionary laws which had kept Blacks in the now devastated and impoverished Southern states.
I never said they didn't migrate North early on "difficulty in being able to transport themselves", because I never said they didn't migrate North early on. It just happened a lot slower than you seem to think it should have.
They left because of the rampant discrimination they faced in the South even after they were freed. I don't deny there was discrimination in the North too, but to imply they didn't want to leave the South because they had it so good there is beyond belief.
BTW, the settlers had ships ready to take them to the "New World".
and which gained a supermajority of both Houses of Congress
Many of whom found themselves unemployed afterwards.
after the Southern delegation had withdrawn.
Of course. They knew what everyone but you knows. It was nothing.
The one the original 7 seceding states rejected.
And all but 5 or 6 in what would become the Union rejected.
Yet we know even from Union Army sources that many thousands of Blacks did fight in the Confederate Army.
Even if every last one had enlisted into the Confederate military and fought willingly which we know isn't the case, it was still a fraction of the number that escaped to the North, joined the Union Army and navy, and fought against the Confederacy.
"I tried all in my power to avert this war. I saw it coming, for twelve years I worked night and day to prevent it, but I could not. The North was mad and blind; it would not let us govern ourselves, and so the war came, and now it must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks, and his children seize the musket and fight our battle, unless you acknowledge our right to self government. We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for Independence, and that, or extermination." - President Jefferson Davis The Atlantic Monthly Volume 14, Number 83
"It is untrue that I or anyone else in Germany wanted the war in 1939." Adolf Hitler, April 29, 1945
“And slavery, you say, is no longer an element in the contest.” Union Colonel James Jaquess
“No, it is not, it never was an essential element. It was only a means of bringing other conflicting elements to an earlier culmination. It fired the musket which was already capped and loaded. There are essential differences between the North and the South that will, however this war may end, make them two nations.” Jefferson Davis
Both were from an interview in 1864. What was JD saying eariler?
Speech of Jefferson Davis before the Mississippi Legislature, Nov. 16, 1858
Was JD walking back from his statements from 1858?
Davis rejects peace with reunion https://cwcrossroads.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/jefferson-davis-rejects-peace-with-reunion-1864/
Before I click, who is this "cwcrossroads" that I need to read them?
Beginning in late 1862, James Phelan, Joseph Bradford, and Reuben Davis wrote to Jefferson Davis to express concern that some opponents were claiming the war "was for the defense of the institution of slavery" (Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, pp. 479-480, 765). They called those who were making this claim "demagogues." Cooper notes that when two Northerners visited Jefferson Davis during the war, Davis insisted "the Confederates were not battling for slavery" and that "slavery had never been the key issue" (Jefferson Davis, American, p. 524).
Of course he did.
“Every man should endeavor to understand the meaning of subjugation before it is too late… It means the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern schoolteachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit objects for derision… It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties.” Maj. General Patrick R. Cleburne, CSA
Here's some history, written by the Confederacy.
Speech of Jefferson Davis before the Mississippi Legislature, Nov. 16, 1858
"Next to the demands for safety and equality, the secessionist leaders emphasized familiar economic complaints. South Carolinians in particular were convinced of the general truth of Rhett's and Hammond's much publicized figures upon Southern tribute to Northern interests." (Allan Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, Ordeal of the Union, Volume 2, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1950, p. 332)
So they gave other reasons. So what? Even if we accept there were other reasons, it doesn't change the fact that slavery was one of them.
[TwelveOfTwenty #641] We've already been over that. Lincoln had to keep the Union united, and had to talk out of both sides of his mouth. In 1864 with the war still going on, the Republicans in Congress voted to abolish slavery everywhere but were blocked by the party of Jefferson Davis. In 1865 with the war still going on, Congress voted to abolish slavery everywhere.[FLT-bird #642] Yes we've been over that. Lincoln was not talking out of both sides of his mouth. He said openly and repeatedly he was not an abolitionist. He never said anything to the contrary before very late in the war. The same is true of the Republican Party in general. They went to great pains to make it clear they were not abolitionists. They were quite willing to protect slavery forever by express constitutional amendment and even to strengthen fugitive slave laws.
In 1860, the Democratic Party split into the Southern Democrats and the Northern Democrats, with different nominees and incompatible platforms. The party of Jefferson Davis was the Southern Democrats. The Northern politicians spoken of in 1864 were not of the party of Jefferson Davis. Davis.
Jefferson Davis' Address to the National Democracy
Washington, D.C., May 7, 1860
[excerpt]
What is the history of the recent Convention at Charleston?Seventeen States, forming a majority of the whole, adopted with remarkable unanimity a platform of principles so worded as to avoid the possibility of misconstruction—principles deemed political axioms by all who uphold the equal rights of the States as the very basis of the Confederacy. Many delegates from the remaining sixteen States concurred in opinion with this majority, conspicuous amongst whom were delegates from Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
The States which adopted this platform give electoral votes which can be relied on with absolute certainty in favor of democratic nominees, and well-grounded confidence is entertained of a like result in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. These seventeen States united with Pennsylvania alone comprise a majority of the entire electoral vote of the United States, able to elect the democratic nominees against the combined opposition of all the remaining States.
This platform was deliberately rejected by a combination composed of a small fraction of the delegates from the seventeen democratic States and a very large majority of the delegates of the remaining sixteen States; and a resolution was adopted in its stead simply reaffirming the principles of the Cincinnati platform, without explanation or interpretation of its disputed meaning. This was done with the openly-avowed purpose of enabling the democratic party to wage battle with some chance of success in certain Northern and Western States by presenting to the people as its doctrines principles openly and expressly repudiated by a majority of the democratic State delegations, and by a majority approaching unanimity of the democratic electoral votes of the Union.
In a speech at Washington D.C., July 9, 1860, Jeffferson Davis referred to the Northern Democrats as that spurious and decayed off-shoot of democracy, which, claiming that this Federal government has no power, leaves the people our next greatest evil, despotism; and denies protection to our Constitutional rights.
Lincoln did not support abolition in 1858, nor for years thereafter. Even had the EP been incorporated into the Constitution, it would not have affected slavery in the Union states. Lawful slavery continued in the Union states until the 13th Amendment became effective.
Nobody voted to abolish slavery in 1864. It was beyond the power of the Federal legislature to abolish slavery. Votes were taken in Congress to propose an Amendment to the Constitution for consideration by the States. Amendments are acts of the sovereign States, not acts of the Federal government, or the legislature thereof.
With two-thirds supermajorities of both houses, the Federal Congress may propose Amendments. Alternatively, with a simple majority of two-thirds of the State legislatures, the Federal Congress role is reduced to a ministerial one wherein Congress "shall call a convention for proposing Amendments."
Either the Congress or the People as States may propose, but only the People, as States, may ratify a proposed Amendment.
Senate Joint Resolution (S.J.R.) #16, which was to become the 13th Amendment, was introduced by Senator John B. Henderson of Missouri, a Democrat. Congressional Globe (CG) 11 Jan 1864, pg. 145.
S.J.R. #16 was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, CG, 8 Apr 1864, pg. 1490. The recorded vote was Yeas 38, Nays 6. "The VICE PRESIDENT annouunced that the joint resolution, having received the concurrence of two-thirds of the Senators present, was passed. Its title was amended to read: A joint resolution submitting to the Legislatures of the several States a proposition to amend the Constitution of the United States."
S.J.R. #16 was considered by the House on June 15, 1864, CG, 15 Jun 1864, pg. 2995. The vote was yeas 93, nays 65, not voting 23. The Result was announced, "So the joint resolution was not passed, two thirds not having voted in favor thereof."
S.J.R. #16 was reconsidered by the House on January 31, 1865. CG, 31 Jan 1865, pg. 531. The recorded vote was yeas 119, nays 56, not voting 8. "So, the two-thirds required by the Constitution of the United States having voted in favor thereof, the joint resolution was passed."
Ratification required approval by three-fourths of ALL the states in the Union. Unless the Confederate States were considered to have left the Union, in 1864 ratification would have required the approval of 27 States, necessarily including several Confederate states, a more considerable problem than party politics in the North. Eventually, with the refusal of several Union States to ratify, 4 former Confederate States were required for ratification. Ratifying votes came from Arkansas, South Carolina, Alabama and Georgia by December 11, 1865 after their claims to being Confederate States had been extinguished. On December 18, 1865, the secretary of State proclaimed the Amendment to be in full effect with 27 States ratifying.
Just adding new states to the Union would not have been much of a solution. Additional states would increase the number required for ratification. It would have required the creation of 16 new states, all ratifying, to achieve ratification of the Amendment without support of any former rebel state.
In 1865, Congress still could not vote to abolish slavery. It could only propose an Amendment to the Constitution asking the people to decide whether they wanted to effect a change to their organic law, the same organic law by which the People created the Congress.
Aside from a lack of delegated authority to abolish slavery, it would have been impossible for Congress to abolish slavery without nullifying the Fugitive Slave Clause, Art. 4, Sec. 3. Any Federal statute repugnant to any part of the Constitution is considered null and void ab initio, as though it never existed.
As it is frequently asserted that Lincoln "approved" the Resolution with his signature, I note that the President plays no role whatever in Amendments to the Constitution. Lincoln's signature was legally meaningless, and drew congressional action to make that clear. CG 7 Feb 1865, pg. 629, Senator Trumbull speaking:
In 1798 a case arose in the Supreme Court of the United States depending upon the amendment to the Constitution proposed in 1794, and the counsel in argument before the Supreme Court insisted that the amendment was not valid, not having been approved by the President of the United States. This was his argument:“The amendment has not been proposed in the form prescribed by the Constitution, and therefore it is void. Upon an inspection of the original roll, it appears that the amendment was never submitted to the President for his approbation. The Constitution declares that ‘every order, resolution, or vote, to which the concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the same shall take effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be be passed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives,’ &c. (Article one, section seven.) Now, the Constitution likewise declares that the concurrence of both Houses shall be necessary to a proposition for amendments. (Article five.) And it is no answer to the objection to observe that as two thirds or both Houses are required to originate the proposition; it would be nugatorv to return it with the President’s negative to be repassed by the same number, since the reasons assigned for his disapprobation might be so satisfactory as to reduce the majority below the constitutional proportion. The concurrence of the President is required in matters of infinitely less importance, and whether on subjects of ordinary legislation or of constitutional amendments the expression is the same, and equally applies to the act of both Houses of Congress.”Mr. Lee, the Attorney General, in reply to this argument, said:
“Has not the same course been pursued relative to all the other amendments that have been adopted? And the case of amendments is evidently a substantive act, unconnected with the ordinary business of legislation, and not within the policy or terms of investing the President with a qualified negative on the acts and resolutions of Congress.”The court, speaking through Chase, Justice, observes:
“There can surely be no necessity to answer that argument. The negative of the President applies only to the ordinary cases of legislation. He has nothing to do with the proposition or adoption of amendments to the Constitution.”The court would not hear an argument from the Attorney General on the point, it was so clear. If the approval of the President were necessary, none of the amendments which have been made to the Constitution since its adoption would be valid, for not one of them ever received his approval.