But his actions were not the exact opposite. Claiming they were is a lie. Davis advocated emancipation in exchange for military service for slaves. He empowered the Confederate ambassador to Britain/France with plenipotentiary power to agree to a treaty that would require the CSA to abolish slavery. These are not the actions of somebody fighting to defend slavery.
Hitler said he didn't want war in 1939. Do you believe him?
Godwin. Get some new material. This is just sad.
The Democrats say "voting rights" is about election integrity. Do you believe them?
Everybody knows why the Democrats are pushing the Cheat Forever Act. Everybody knows why they want THE least secure means of voting and why they are opposed to Voter ID. No other western democracy allows either for obvious reasons.
The homosexual alliance said all they wanted was to be left alone. Were they telling the truth?
Frankly, I think a lot of gay people really do just want to be left alone. 45% of gay men voted for Trump in 2020.
All of them were and are socialists and Democrats, just as JD was. Why should we believe him any more than we believe them?
LOL! You think Davis was a socialist? You think the political parties never change? Good grief. Learn some history. The Democrats used to be for small and limited government and they used to be against centralized power and for balanced budgets. Even 30 years ago the Democrats could credibly claim they were still the party of the working man - which they had been for much of the 20th century. Now they are the party of Northeast/Left Coast elites and various grievance groups. The Republicans are now becoming the party of the working man when for a long time they were the party of big business and of Neocon warmongers. The parties change over time.
If it would have been cheaper to hire immigrants rather than import and breed slaves, they would have done it.
The Northern states DID do that.
Cassius Clay wasn't an abolitionist?
Those who were abolitionists could not get elected. In fact they couldn't even come close to getting elected until very late in the war. In the ante bellum period abolitionists routinely got only single digit percentages of the vote.
When it came to actions, the Confederacy kept slavery until forced to abandon it. When the Republicans had the votes they needed they abolished slavery.
The Confederacy could have opted to stay in the US and keep slavery. They were willing to agree to abolish slavery in exchange for foreign military aid. They valued independence a whole lot more than they valued slavery.
It was never ratified.
It was never ratified solely because the original 7 seceding states turned it down.
JD and the declarations of secession said they were.
No, what they said was that the Northern states had violated the constitution.
The slave holding states seceded over the injustice of tariffs that would have protected American companies. Is that your defense of the Confederacy?
That would have protected American companies WHERE??????? What else would those tariffs have done? Wrecked the Southern economy by slashing its exports and by sucking money out of the pockets of every Southerner to pay for manufactured goods produced WHERE AGAIN????? We both know the answer.
I didn't say ALL of them were voted out.
There is zero evidence that those who were voted out in the next election were voted out for supporting the Corwin Amendment.
Although I snipped most of Lincoln's statements, I kept this because it helps to show what Lincoln was up against.
Up against? He himself was no different in his views than those in the majority he described. He was not an abolitionist and was even willing to strengthen fugitive slave laws and was willing to protect slavery where it existed.
We all KNOW what Lincoln said. We also understand that Lincoln had to deal with several dynamics besides abolition all at the same time. He had to deal with Union states that still allowed slave holding. He had to deal with abolitionists who were growing impatient with the lack of progress.
And he had to deal with JD and the slave holding states threatening to secede if abolitionists were elected in 1860. Abolitionists were elected, and the slave holding states followed up with their threats to secede AFTER this address was made, because they did not believe he intended to preserve slavery regardless of what he said. Frederick Douglas understood this when he later said "Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined."
Abolitionists were NOT elected in 1860. Lincoln himself was no abolitionist nor were the other leaders of the Republican Party - like Seward for example. What abolitionists there were were few in number.
No one denies he said a lot of things we would find disgusting today, but when you take the conditions of the time into consideration, something you have even pointed out, you get the complete picture of what he was up against.
I know you're going to say the complete picture is that Licoln and the Republicans were not abolitionists, but the Corwin Amendment was never ratified, and the legislation mentioned was never passed. Abolition was passed and made law. That's all that counts.
Lincoln was a man of his time. He was not the secular saint he was later portrayed as in Yankee propaganda. Then again, Davis was a man of his time too. Davis was in fact, a noted moderate. That's why he was elected. The Corwin Amendment was not ratified ONLY because the 7 seceding states turned down the offer. Not Not NOT because Northerners were opposed to it.
blah blah blah the usual spam that does not say what I claim it says.
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).
Precious few textbooks mention the fact that by 1864 key Confederate leaders, including Jefferson Davis, were prepared to abolish slavery. As early as 1862 some Confederate leaders supported various forms of emancipation. In 1864 Jefferson Davis officially recommended that slaves who performed faithful service in non-combat positions in the Confederate army should be freed. Robert E. Lee and many other Confederate generals favored emancipating slaves who served in the Confederate army. In fact, Lee had long favored the abolition of slavery and had called the institution a "moral and political evil" years before the war (Recollections and Letters of Robert E. Lee, New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2003, reprint, pp. 231-232). By late 1864, Davis was prepared to abolish slavery in order to gain European diplomatic recognition and thus save the Confederacy. Duncan Kenner, one of the biggest slaveholders in the South and the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the Confederate House of Representatives, strongly supported this proposal. So did the Confederate Secretary of State, Judah Benjamin. Davis informed congressional leaders of his intentions, and then sent Kenner to Europe to make the proposal. Davis even made Kenner a minister plenipotentiary so as to ensure he could make the proposal to the British and French governments and that it would be taken seriously.
"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/
"Neither “love for the African” [witness the Northern laws against him], nor revulsion from “property in persons” [“No, you imported Africans and sold them as chattels in the slave markets”] motivated the present day agitators,"…... “No sir….the mask is off, the purpose is avowed…It is a struggle for political power." Jefferson Davis 1848
“What do you propose, gentlemen of the free soil party? Do you propose to better the condition of the slave? Not at all. What then do you propose? You say you are opposed to the expansion of slavery. Is the slave to be benefited by it? Not at all. What then do you propose? It is not humanity that influences you in the position which you now occupy before the country. It is that you may have an opportunity of cheating us that you want to limit slave territory within circumscribed bounds. It is that you may have a majority in the Congress of the United States and convert the government into an engine of Northern aggrandizement. It is that your section may grow in power and prosperity upon treasures unjustly taken from the South, like the vampire bloated and gorged with the blood which it has secretly sucked from its victim. You desire to weaken the political power of the Southern states, - and why? Because you want, by an unjust system of legislation, to promote the industry of the New England States, at the expense of the people of the South and their industry.” Jefferson Davis 1860 speech in the US Senate
"The people of the Southern States, whose almost exclusive occupation was agriculture, early perceived a tendency in the Northern States to render the common government subservient to their own purposes by imposing burdens on commerce as a protection to their manufacturing and shipping interests. Long and angry controversies grew out of these attempts, often successful, to benefit one section of the country at the expense of the other. And the danger of disruption arising from this cause was enhanced by the fact that the Northern population was increasing, by immigration and other causes, in a greater ratio than the population of the South. By degrees, as the Northern States gained preponderance in the National Congress, self-interest taught their people to yield ready assent to any plausible advocacy of their right as a majority to govern the minority without control." Jefferson Davis Address to the Confederate Congress April 29, 1861
You mean the ones who voted to abolish slavery?
After they voted to explicitly protect slavery effectively forever by express constitutional amendment? After they passed a resolution in Congress explicitly stating that they were not fighting over slavery?
I'm not tying the South to slavery. No one in the South today supports slavery, with the possible exception of the free traitors and we have here too. No one in the South today ever bought or owned slave, except for those who bought sexual favors from the victims of human traffickers, and we have them here too.
I'm tying the Democrat run Confederacy to slavery. It's you who are tying the Confederacy and in effect slavery to the modern South, and to the modern right.
No. This is an old game Leftists play. They try to portray the federal government as always being the "good" guys and those who want decentralized power ie states' rights as wanting it only so they can oppress people. They of course conveniently forget about all those times the federal government oppressed people. Over and above that, Northeasterners ie Yankees try to cast off all "sins" of racism and slavery by means of projecting them exclusively onto the South...which they have always hated anyway. Their historical grudges and bigotry toward the South perfectly dovetails with their current politics too. They want centralized power as always. They want bloated budgets, the US to act as the world's policeman, etc etc. Hell, now even the US isn't big enough and they want a world government.
Meanwhile the South still wants limited government, states' rights, a balanced budget and strong borders. This historical revisionism has one aim - to serve the Left's current political interests.
I don't care what you're waiting for.
You can't point out where it does because it doesn't.
It was about slavery as late as 1865. On the formation of black regiments in the Confederate army, by promising the troops their freedom: 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.]
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?"
All of this is consistant with what JD and the Confederacy said
You've listed a couple men who believed it was about slavery. There were some who did believe that. I don't deny it. Then again, there were many many who did not. I've already pointed out that Davis did not think either secession or the war were "about" slavery and have provided numerous quotes to back that up. Here are some others:
"There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages" Robert E. Lee
"Slavery as an institution, is a moral and political evil in any Country". Robert E Lee in an 1856 letter to his daughter Mary
In his book What They Fought For, 1861-1865, historian James McPherson reported on his reading of more than 25,000 letters and more than 100 diaries of soldiers who fought on both sides of the War for Southern Independence and concluded that Confederate soldiers "fought for liberty and independence from what they regarded as a tyrannical government." The letters and diaries of many Confederate soldiers "bristled with the rhetoric of liberty and self government," writes McPherson, and spoke of a fear of being "subjugated" and "enslaved" by a tyrannical federal government.
“In any case, I think slave property will be lost eventually.” Jefferson Davis 1861
“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, January 1864
"This question of tariffs and taxation, and not the negro question, keeps our country divided....the men of New York were called upon to keep out the Southern members because if they were admitted they would uphold [ie hold up or obstruct] our commercial greatness." Governor of New York Horatio Seymour on not readmitting Southern representatives to Congress 1866
"Slavery is not the cause of the rebellion ....Slavery is the pretext on which the leaders of the rebellion rely, 'to fire the Southern Heart' and through which the greatest degree of unanimity can be produced....Mr. Calhoun, after finding that the South could not be brought into sufficient unanimity by a clamor about the tariff, selected slavery as the better subject for agitation North American Review (Boston October 1862)
On 18 March 1861, the Boston Transcript noted that while the Southern states had claimed to secede over the slavery issue, now "the mask has been thrown off and it is apparent that the people of the principal seceding states are now for commercial independence. They dream that the centres of traffic can be changed from Northern to Southern ports....by a revenue system verging on free trade...."
On May 1, 1833, President Andrew Jackson wrote, "the tariff was only a pretext, and disunion and southern confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question." Jon Meecham (2009), American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, New York: Random House, p. 247; Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, Vol. V, p. 72.
In the North, enforcement of the Morrill Tariff contributed to support for the Union cause among industrialists and merchant interests. Speaking of this class, the abolitionist Orestes Brownson derisively remarked that "the Morrill Tariff moved them more than the fall of Sumter."
"It is not a war for Negro Liberty, but for national despotism. It is a tariff war, an aristocratic war, a pro-slavery war." Abolitionist George Basset May 1861 American Missionary Association
"The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals. No principle, that is possible to be named, can be more self-evidently false than this; or more self-evidently fatal to all political freedom. Yet it triumphed in the field, and is now assumed to be established. If it really be established, the number of slaves, instead of having been diminished by the war, has been greatly increased; for a man, thus subjected to a government that he does not want, is a slave. And there is no difference, in principle --- but only in degree --- between political and chattel slavery. The former, no less than the latter, denies a man's ownership of himself and the products of his labor; and asserts that other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their uses, and at their pleasure." – abolitionist Lysander Spooner
If FR is willing to give you a forum to post Democrat lies, then I'll keep replying with the truth.
The one posting Democrat lies here is you. The PC Revisionists are all Democrats - and hard left ones at that.
The Democrats said it themselves. I'm sure their political descendents appapreciate your efforts to free them from their history and tie our side to it.
Southerners did say it themselves. They were for states' rights, self determination, balanced budgets, limited government and the original constitution. That's MY side no matter whether historical or present.
It was never ratified. It was nothing.
It was not ratified ONLY BECAUSE the original 7 seceding states turned it down. It is prima facia evidence that secession and the war were not "about" slavery. Its also damned inconvenient for you PCers.
Even if it had been ratified, it could have been repealed later, although that would have taken a lot longer if the CW hadn't occurred because the slave holding states would not have given up their "property" otherwise.
There aren't anywhere near enough states even now to repeal it. The only way it could have been repealed would have been with the consent of the states that still had slavery.
This is why I'm not going to waste my time trying to explain to you what's in the Virginia declaration of secession. You clearly won't acknowledge anything that would prevent you from sticking the right with your Democrat history of slavery.
Show us all. Cite it.
(Later) They were willing to agree to abolish slavery in exchange for foreign military aid.
Are we supposed to be impressed that he was holding humans hostage as slaves to get military aid from other countries? Is that your defense?
Posts like this are why I suspect you're a leftist plant trying to make Conservatives look bad. You just admitted that JD was guilty of what the human trafickers were guilty of, which we all knew anyway. The only alternative is that you really believe that was a good defense of JD.
These are not the actions of somebody fighting to defend slavery.
They weren't actions at all. They were nothing but talk. If he meant any of it, he would have abolished slavery without holding them hostage for something in return.
These are the actions of someone who realized his nation's defense of slavery was appalling to others, which would explain why he and others in the Confederacy made all of those comments you keep posting about how secession wasn't about slavery. Unfortunately for them, they couldn't lie their way out of this any more than Hitler could in 1945.
Repeats snipped.
Godwin. Get some new material. This is just sad.
I knew you wouldn't answer this so I'll post it again. Hitler said he didn't want war in 1939. Do you believe him?
Everybody knows why the Democrats are pushing the Cheat Forever Act. Everybody knows why they want THE least secure means of voting and why they are opposed to Voter ID. No other western democracy allows either for obvious reasons.
And everybody outside of the Confederacy amen corner also knows JD and the seceding states meant what they said about seceding to preserve slavery.
Speech of Jefferson Davis before the Mississippi Legislature, Nov. 16, 1858
The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States
Frankly, I think a lot of gay people really do just want to be left alone. 45% of gay men voted for Trump in 2020.
I was asking about the homosexual lobby in general, but you made a good point. About 28% of the total gay vote went to President Trump.
But the homosexual lobby is still forcing their lifestyle down our throats (figuratively speaking (for now)).
LOL! You think Davis was a socialist?
No, I said socialists AND Democrats. JD was a Democrat.
You think the political parties never change? Good grief. Learn some history.
The Democrats along with their socialists and communist bretheren have never changed. To them, it has always been about gaining power by promising goodies.
Before and during the CW it was about the "right" to own slaves.
Then it was about white supremecy.
In the Democrat ruined cities it's about getting government freebies.
And look at the millions who have been slaughtered by socialism and communism in return for the promise to others of cradle to grave government benefits.
The only thing that has changed is who they make promises to in return for power, but it's still the same messaging. Take your goodies and look the other way.
The Northern states DID do that (hire immigrants rather than import and breed slaves).
They hired people who came over voluntarily for the opportunity to work for a better life, as opposed to paying slave traders to kidnap humans to be slaves, and to breed more slaves.
Those who were abolitionists could not get elected. In fact they couldn't even come close to getting elected until very late in the war.
(Later) The Confederacy could have opted to stay in the US and keep slavery.
JD and the slave holding states cited the election of abolitionists as one of their reasons for secession.
It was never ratified solely because the original 7 seceding states turned it down.
The slave holding states turned it down because they didn't believe the North would live up to it. They were right, since the Northern states wouldn't ratify it even in the face of secession and war.
No, what they said was that the Northern states had violated the constitution.
Yes, their perceived Constitutional right to own slaves.
That would have protected American companies WHERE??????? What else would those tariffs have done? Wrecked the Southern economy by slashing its exports and by sucking money out of the pockets of every Southerner to pay for manufactured goods produced WHERE AGAIN????? We both know the answer.
How would tariffs on foreign goods have hurt the Confederacy's economy?
There is zero evidence that those who were voted out in the next election were voted out for supporting the Corwin Amendment.
Nope, that was just a side issue that no one paid any attention to, just as in 1858 in Kansas and 1864 after the Democrats blocked passage of abolition over "states' rights". The election of enough Republicans to pass abolition the following year was just a coincidence.
Up against? He himself was no different in his views than those in the majority he described.
To repeat, we all KNOW what Lincoln said. We also understand that Lincoln had to deal with several dynamics besides abolition all at the same time. He had to deal with Union states that still allowed slave holding. He had to deal with abolitionists who were growing impatient with the lack of progress.
And he had to deal with JD and the slave holding states threatening to secede if aboltionists were elected in 1860. Abolitionists were elected, and the slave holding states followed up with their threats to secede AFTER this speach was made, because they did not believe he intended to preserve slavery regardless of what they told him. Frederick Douglas understood this when he later said "Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined."
He was not an abolitionist and was even willing to strengthen fugitive slave laws and was willing to protect slavery where it existed.
Neither became law, while abolition did.
Repeats snipped.
More Democrat propaganda saying the Democrats were not defending slavery snipped.
No. This is an old game Leftists play.
If I was trying to tie the modern right to slavery, I would do exactly what you're doing. Your "defense" of JD above was right on target, if making Conservatives look bad was your goal.
Abolitionists were NOT elected in 1860. Lincoln himself was no abolitionist nor were the other leaders of the Republican Party - like Seward for example. What abolitionists there were were few in number.
The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States
Lincoln was a man of his time. He was not the secular saint he was later portrayed as in Yankee propaganda.
Lincoln had to deal with the people and attitudes of his time.
Then again, Davis was a man of his time too.
You can't hide behind that after admitting that JD offered to free slaves in return for military aid. He clearly understood the evils of slavery, or at least understood that others could see the evils of slavery.
Davis was in fact, a noted moderate. That's why he was elected.
A moderate who was willing to hold humans hostage as slaves as a bargaining chip to get military help.
No. This is an old game Leftists play. They try to portray the federal government as always being the "good" guys and those who want decentralized power ie states' rights as wanting it only so they can oppress people.
That would be funny if it wasn't so ugly. A defender of the Confederacy talking about oppressing people.
They of course conveniently forget about all those times the federal government oppressed people. Over and above that, Northeasterners ie Yankees try to cast off all "sins" of racism and slavery by means of projecting them exclusively onto the South...which they have always hated anyway.
Absolute nonsense. No one on the right associates the modern South with slavery. That's why plants like you have to pretend to be Conservatives so you can accept it on our behalf. It's the same as what Jussie Smollett did. Why FR gives you a forum to do it is beyond me.
Their historical grudges and bigotry toward the South perfectly dovetails with their current politics too. They want centralized power as always. They want bloated budgets, the US to act as the world's policeman, etc etc. Hell, now even the US isn't big enough and they want a world government. Meanwhile the South still wants limited government, states' rights, a balanced budget and strong borders.
So why do you keep re-electing RINOs like McConnell and Grahamnesty, and which side gave us the Bushes? All of them did what you just said the South is against.
OBTW, Clinton also came from the South.
You've listed a couple men who believed it was about slavery. There were some who did believe that. I don't deny it. Then again, there were many many who did not. I've already pointed out that Davis did not think either secession or the war were "about" slavery and have provided numerous quotes to back that up. Here are some others:
I don't care that JD, the Confederacy, or Confederacy defenders are saying that secession was not about slavery, any more than I care about what Hitler said about not wanting war in 1939. In both cases, their actions put a lie to what they said.
You can't point out where it does because it doesn't.
To anyone else reading this, do I need to point it out?
There aren't anywhere near enough states even now to repeal it. The only way it could have been repealed would have been with the consent of the states that still had slavery.
IOW, slavery wouldn't have been abolished without the CW.