Replies

huh?

I just did the same thing you did.

States frequently take their time to pass various amendments. Just because they do not do so at first opportunity doesn't mean they never would have.

They didn't have any time, in the sense that secession was already happening and a civil war was coming. If they were going to pass this, they would have in the same amount of time that the five states did. They didn't. Your could haves and ifs don't prove anything.

Repeats on the GNDN Corbomite Maneuver snipped.

it is clear they did not secede over slavery.

Why FR allows you to waste their bandwidth defending Democrats like this is beyond me, but here you are again.

The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States

From Georgia.

For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property...

In 1820 the North endeavored to overturn this wise and successful policy and demanded that the State of Missouri should not be admitted into the Union unless she first prohibited slavery within her limits by her constitution.

Mr. Jefferson condemned the restriction and foresaw its consequences and predicted that it would result in the dissolution of the Union. His prediction is now history. The North demanded the application of the principle of prohibition of slavery to all of the territory acquired from Mexico and all other parts of the public domain then and in all future time. It was the announcement of her purpose to appropriate to herself all the public domain then owned and thereafter to be acquired by the United States. The claim itself was less arrogant and insulting than the reason with which she supported it. That reason was her fixed purpose to limit, restrain, and finally abolish slavery in the States where it exists.

The Presidential election of 1852 resulted in the total overthrow of the advocates of restriction and their party friends. Immediately after this result the anti-slavery portion of the defeated party resolved to unite all the elements in the North opposed to slavery an to stake their future political fortunes upon their hostility to slavery everywhere. This is the party two whom the people of the North have committed the Government. They raised their standard in 1856 and were barely defeated. They entered the Presidential contest again in 1860 and succeeded.

The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its leaders and applauded by its followers.

It would appear difficult to employ language freer from ambiguity, yet for above twenty years the non-slave-holding States generally have wholly refused to deliver up to us persons charged with crimes affecting slave property.

The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party.

While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen. The opposition to slavery was then...

The anti-slavery sentiment of the North offered the best chance for success. An anti-slavery party must necessarily look to the North alone for support, but a united North was now strong enough to control the Government in all of its departments, and a sectional party was therefore determined upon. Time and issues upon slavery were necessary to its completion and final triumph. The feeling of anti-slavery, which it was well known was very general among the people of the North, had been long dormant or passive; it needed only a question to arouse it into aggressive activity.

That reason was her fixed purpose to limit, restrain, and finally abolish slavery in the States where it exists. The South with great unanimity declared her purpose to resist the principle of prohibition to the last extremity.

From Mississippi

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.

It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.

It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.

Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery;

It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.

From Texas

They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.

By consolidating their strength, they have placed the slave-holding States in a hopeless minority in the federal congress, and rendered representation of no avail in protecting Southern rights against their exactions and encroachments.

They have for years past encouraged and sustained lawless organizations to steal our slaves and prevent their recapture...

She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time.

From South Carolina

A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

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?"

From the Confederacy's Constitution, written by the contemporary leaders of the Confederacy.

Sec. 9. (4) No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.

Sec. 2. (I) The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.

Sec. 2. (3) The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.

Repeat snipped.

More democrat nonsense about how the Confederacy and JD were about to abolish slavery although they never did snipped.

You obviously don't care about their direct open statements made over and over again that they were not abolitionists.

That's right, I don't care. I understand what they had to work with. You understand it too, but you're either unable or unwilling to connect the dots, even as many others including Fredrick Douglas could and did.

Of course you leave out the fact that the declarations of causes were only made by 4 states

From Virginia, "and the Federal Government, having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern Slaveholding States."

Besides, what difference does it make that other slave holding states didn't advertise their goal to preserve slavery? They understood they were on the wrong side of history, so why would they go around advertising it.

AND that violating the fugitive slave clause of the constitution actually was unconstitutional.

Rescuing Jews from Hitler's concentration camps was also illegal.

I know you're going to cry to your mommy about how I called you a Nazi again, but the fact remains that the injustices (to put it mildly) both entities were committing were legal according to laws they passed.

As long as you keep spreading ~~PC Revisionist propaganda~~ the Democrat's own statements that matched their actions, I'll keep ~~refuting it with facts, quotes and sources~~ spamming FR with what the Democrats said.

FIFY.

No, I am citing the fact that by law at the time, they were property.

Everything Hitler, Stalin, and Mao did was legal too.

You have of course failed to prove there was a "breeding program" as you falsely claimed.

Introduction to Captive Breeding

Yes. That's (only allowed to reproduce within their own plantation) what it meant to be a slave. That does not mean there was a breeding program as you falsely claimed.

According to this, that's the definition of a breeding program. Your rebuttal only proves the point.

What they meant was explicitly recognizing the rights of states, letting states remove officials of the central government, and placing strict limits on the ability of the central government to tax and spend money as well as requiring it to have a balanced budget.

The rights of states to own humans as property, and a balanced budget except for paying for the war to preserve their right to said property.

Let me save you some effort. "It is clear they did not secede over slavery."

Repeats snipped.

You know who was far more similar to the Nazis? The union. They too loved centralized power. They too were vehemently opposed to state's rights. They too trampled on civil liberties. They too started wars of aggression for money and empire. What's wrong with pointing that out?

What's wrong with pointing that out is that it's all lies written by the slave holding Democrats to cover the fact that they were fighting to preserve slavery. As they themselves said, "That reason was her fixed purpose to limit, restrain, and finally abolish slavery in the States where it exists. The South with great unanimity declared her purpose to resist the principle of prohibition to the last extremity."

I would say that lying falls withing the bounds of "the last extremity".

Those who used terror to effect political change are by definition terrorists. I suppose you think John Brown was not a terrorist? I suppose murdering babies was OK with you if it served the political cause?

Killing babies is a tragedy under any circumstances, but what about the babies who grew up to die as slaves. Oh wait, they were black and they were legally considered property by the slave holding states, so I guess you don't care about them.

And I just love how you write off emancipation as a political cause. If you aren't a leftist plant, then that shows what you really think.

Yep. They even brought in tons of cheap labor at the time from Europe to fill their factories and drive labor costs down.

So now you want to regurgitate that argument. We've discussed this in posts 677, 681, and 684

Take it up with the eyewitnesses.

No need. If we take the statement "They – the enemy – talked of having 9,000 men." as actual fact and add it to all of your other estimates, you still have less that 1/5 of the number of escaped slaves, and less than 1/10 of the total number of blacks, who served in the Union's military. I can concede all of your numbers and still be correct.

When Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in January of 1863, which freed no slaves because it exempted all territories under Union control, there was a massive desertion crisis in the Union army. Union soldiers ‘were willing to risk their lives for Union," McPherson writes, "but not for black freedom." James McPherson For Cause and Comrades; Why Men Fought in the Civil War.

IMHO, he and you have something in common. Both of you are leftists who are trying to associate slavery with the Republicans. Neither of you are succeeding.

I might well accuse you of trying to make Conservatives look bad by posing as one while being an idiot. I cited the % of freedmen in Maryland and Virginia to show that industrialization was spreading southward and as it was doing so it was killing slavery - as it had done elsewhere. That wasn't a value judgment. It was a simple observation of fact.

So what you're saying as a Conservative is that it was justifiable for the slave holding states to keep their slaves until they didn't need them anymore. Thanks but no thanks. That's not what modern Conservatism is about, so take your propaganda back to DU or where ever you're from.

The same Robert Tombs who went out of his way to specifically cite the tariff and the economic exploitation of the Southern states, yes. Why should you believe him when he said that this was a chief grievance? Because he had no reason to lie about it. He was a slave owner himself. Had he thought it was "all about slavery" he had no reason to say otherwise.

He had every reason to lie about it, the same as the rest of the Democrats running the Confederacy. Slavery had already been abolished in all but a few Union states as well as the countries the Confederacy was trying to bribe into helping them by promising to abolish slavery. They knew how their defense of slavery looked to others and tried to distance themselves from it, just as they are trying today by associating slavery with the modern right. I'll bet they appreciate all of the help you've given them.

So they repeated the Declaration of Independence. Great. That doesn't prove your claim.

"the primary object and ulterior design of our Federal Government were to secure these rights to all persons under its exclusive jurisdiction"

Its not my interpretation. They clearly stated that they were not fighting over slavery. Deal with it.

All they did was abolish it, "but we didn't mean to".

The Republicans didn't even try to abolish slavery until very late in the war. As they themselves had said many times before that, they were not abolitionists.

They didn't have the votes. When they had the votes the voted to abolish it.

I just did the same thing you did.

I hadn't noticed. I edited my previous reply and it screwed it up somehow.

As you said, there wasn't much time. The fact that they did not jump on it immediately does not mean they never would have passed it as you are claiming.

Why FR allows you to waste their bandwidth defending Democrats like this is beyond me, but here you are again. Why FR allows you to waste their bandwidth defending Leftist big government supporters like this is beyond me. But here you are again:

“In any case, I think slave property will be lost eventually.” Jefferson Davis 1861

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.

"The real causes of dissatisfaction in the South with the North, are in the unjust taxation and expenditure of the taxes by the Government of the United States, and in the revolution the North has effected in this government from a confederated republic, to a national sectional despotism." Charleston Mercury 2 days before the November 1860 election

"They [the South] know that it is their import trade that draws from the people's pockets sixty to seventy millions of dollars per annum, in the shape of duties, to be expended mainly in the North, and in the protection and encouragement of Northern interests. These are the reasons why these people do not wish the South to secede from the Union. They, the North, are enraged at the prospect of being despoiled of the rich feast upon which they have so long fed and fattened, and which they were just getting ready to enjoy with still greater gout and gusto. They are mad as hornets because the prize slips them just as they are ready to grasp it. These are the reasons why these people [the North] do not wish the South to secede from the Union." The New Orleans Daily Crescent 21 January 1861

On November 19, 1860 Senator Robert Toombs gave a speech to the Georgia convention in which he denounced the "infamous Morrill bill." The tariff legislation, he argued, was the product of a coalition between abolitionists and protectionists in which "the free-trade abolitionists became protectionists; the non-abolition protectionists became abolitionists." Toombs described this coalition as "the robber and the incendiary... united in joint raid against the South."

"Before... the revolution [the South] was the seat of wealth, as well as hospitality....Wealth has fled from the South, and settled in regions north of the Potomac: and this in the face of the fact, that the South, in four staples alone, has exported produce, since the Revolution, to the value of eight hundred millions of dollars; and the North has exported comparatively nothing. Such an export would indicate unparalleled wealth, but what is the fact? ... Under Federal legislation, the exports of the South have been the basis of the Federal revenue.....Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia, may be said to defray three-fourths of the annual expense of supporting the Federal Government; and of this great sum, annually furnished by them, nothing or next to nothing is returned to them, in the shape of Government expenditures. That expenditure flows in an opposite direction - it flows northwardly, in one uniform, uninterrupted, and perennial stream. This is the reason why wealth disappears from the South and rises up in the North. Federal legislation does all this." ----Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton

[To a Northern Congressman] "You are not content with the vast millions of tribute we pay you annually under the operation of our revenue laws, our navigation laws, your fishing bounties, and by making your people our manufacturers, our merchants, our shippers. You are not satisfied with the vast tribute we pay you to build up your great cities, your railroads, your canals. You are not satisfied with the millions of tribute we have been paying you on account of the balance of exchange, which you hold against us. You are not satisfied that we of the South are almost reduced to the condition of overseers of Northern Capitalist. You are not satisfied with all this; but you must wage a relentless crusade against our rights and our institutions." Rep. John H. Reagan of Texas

"Northerners are the fount of most troubles in the new Union. Connecticut and Massachusetts EXHAUST OUR STRENGTH AND SUBSTANCE and its inhabitants are marked by such a perversity of character they have divided themselves from the rest of America - Thomas Jefferson in an 1820 letter

"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

Georgia’s declaration of causes does talk about slavery a lot. It also talks about economics. To wit:

“The material prosperity of the North was greatly dependent on the Federal Government; that of the the South not at all. In the first years of the Republic the navigating, commercial, and manufacturing interests of the North began to seek profit and aggrandizement at the expense of the agricultural interests. Even the owners of fishing smacks sought and obtained bounties for pursuing their own business (which yet continue), and $500,000 is now paid them annually out of the Treasury. The navigating interests begged for protection against foreign shipbuilders and against competition in the coasting trade. Congress granted both requests, and by prohibitory acts gave an absolute monopoly of this business to each of their interests, which they enjoy without diminution to this day. Not content with these great and unjust advantages, they have sought to throw the legitimate burden of their business as much as possible upon the public; they have succeeded in throwing the cost of light-houses, buoys, and the maintenance of their seamen upon the Treasury, and the Government now pays above $2,000,000 annually for the support of these objects. Theses interests, in connection with the commercial and manufacturing classes, have also succeeded, by means of subventions to mail steamers and the reduction in postage, in relieving their business from the payment of about $7,000,000 annually, throwing it upon the public Treasury under the name of postal deficiency. The manufacturing interests entered into the same struggle early, and has clamored steadily for Government bounties and special favors. This interest was confined mainly to the Eastern and Middle non-slave-holding States. Wielding these great States it held great power and influence, and its demands were in full proportion to its power. The manufacturers and miners wisely based their demands upon special facts and reasons rather than upon general principles, and thereby mollified much of the opposition of the opposing interest. They pleaded in their favor the infancy of their business in this country, the scarcity of labor and capital, the hostile legislation of other countries toward them, the great necessity of their fabrics in the time of war, and the necessity of high duties to pay the debt incurred in our war for independence. These reasons prevailed, and they received for many years enormous bounties by the general acquiescence of the whole country.

But when these reasons ceased they were no less clamorous for Government protection, but their clamors were less heeded-- the country had put the principle of protection upon trial and condemned it. After having enjoyed protection to the extent of from 15 to 200 per cent. upon their entire business for above thirty years, the act of 1846 was passed. It avoided sudden change, but the principle was settled, and free trade, low duties, and economy in public expenditures was the verdict of the American people. The South and the Northwestern States sustained this policy. There was but small hope of its reversal; upon the direct issue, none at all.

All these classes saw this and felt it and cast about for new allies. The anti-slavery sentiment of the North offered the best chance for success. An anti-slavery party must necessarily look to the North alone for support, but a united North was now strong enough to control the Government in all of its departments, and a sectional party was therefore determined upon……”

The conqueror's policy is to divide the conquered into factions and stir up animosity among them...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." -General Patrick Cleburne

Finally South Carolina Senator/Congressman Robert Barnwell Rhett aka "the Father of Secession" wrote the Address of South Carolina to Slaveholding States, which the convention adopted on December 25, 1860 to accompany its secession ordinance.

"The Revolution of 1776, turned upon one great principle, self government, and self taxation, the criterion of self government. Where the interests of two people united together under one Government, are different, each must have the power to protect its interests by the organization of the Government, or they cannot be free. The interests of Great Britain and of the Colonies, were different and antagonistic. Great Britain was desirous of carrying out the policy of all nations toward their Colonies, of making them tributary to their wealth and power. She had vast and complicated relations with the whole world. Her policy toward her North American Colonies, was to identify them with her in all these complicated relations; and to make them bear, in common with the rest of the Empire, the full burden of her obligations and necessities. She had a vast public debt; she had a European policy and an Asiatic policy, which had occasioned the accumulation of her public debt, and which kept her in continual wars. The North American Colonies saw their interests, political and commercial, sacrificed by such a policy. Their interests required, that they should not be identified with the burdens and wars of the mother country. They had been settled under Charters, which gave them self government, at least so far as their property was concerned. They had taxed themselves, and had never been taxed by the Government of Great Britain. To make them a part of a consolidated Empire, the Parliament of Great Britain determined to assume the power of legislating for the Colonies in all cases whatsoever. Our ancestors resisted the pretension. They refused to be a part of the consolidated Government of Great Britain.

The Southern States, now stand exactly in the same position towards the Northern States, that the Colonies did towards Great Britain. The Northern States, having the majority in Congress, claim the same power of omnipotence in legislation as the British parliament. "The General Welfare," is the only limit to the legislation of either; and the majority in Congress, as in the British parliament, are the sole judges of the expediency of the legislation, this "General Welfare" requires. Thus, the Government of the United States has become a consolidated Government; and the people of the Southern State, are compelled to meet the very despotism, their fathers threw off in the Revolution of 1776.

And so with the Southern States, towards the Northern States, in the vital matter of taxation. They are in a minority in Congress. Their representation in Congress, is useless to protect them against unjust taxation; and they are taxed by the people of the North for their benefit, exactly as the people of Great Britain taxed our ancestors in the British parliament for their benefit. For the last forty years, the taxes laid by the Congress of the United States have been laid with a view of subserving the interests of the North. The people of the South have been taxed by duties on imports, not for revenue, but for an object inconsistent with revenue to promote, by prohibitions, Northern interests in the productions of their mines and manufactures.

There is another evil, in the condition of the Southern toward the Northern States, which our ancestors refused to bear toward Great Britain. Our ancestors not only taxed themselves, but all the taxes collected from them, were expended among them. Had they submitted to the pretensions of the British Government, the taxes collected from them, would have been expended in other parts of the British Empire. They were fully aware of the effect of such a policy in impoverishing the people from whom taxes are collected, and in enriching those who receive the benefit of their expenditure. To prevent the evils of such a policy, was one of the motives which drove them on to Revolution. Yet this British policy, has been fully realized towards the Southern States, by the Northern States. The people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the Northern States, but after the taxes are collected, three fourths of them are expended at the North. This cause, with others, connected with the operation of the General Government, has made the cities of the South provincial. Their growth is paralyzed; they are mere suburbs of Northern cities. The agricultural productions of the South are the basis of the foreign commerce of the United States; yet Southern cities do not carry it on. Our foreign trade, is almost annihilated…… To make, however, their numerical power available to rule the Union, the North must consolidate their power. It would not be united, on any matter common to the whole Union in other words, on any constitutional subject for on such subjects divisions are as likely to exist in the North as in the South. Slavery was strictly, a sectional interest. If this could be made the criterion of parties at the North, the North could be united in its power; and thus carry out its measures of sectional ambition, encroachment, and aggrandizement. To build up their sectional predominance in the Union, the Constitution must be first abolished by constructions; but that being done, the consolidation of the North to rule the South, by the tariff and slavery issues, was in the obvious course of things.

"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

more statements about how the Republicans actually were abolitionists but never said so publicly or even in private but that you are going to cling to that little fantasy anyway because its convenient for you snipped.

From Virginia, "and the Federal Government, having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern Slaveholding States."

Yes and? This is a clear statement that Virginia left among other reasons because the federal government was oppressing the Southern states.

LOL! "what difference does it make that other states did not say they had the goal of preserving slavery which was not threatened anyway? I want to believe that because its convenient for me so I'm going to simply assume it."

Rescuing Jews from Hitler's concentration camps was also illegal.

"Everybody I don't like is Hitler".....like a toddler on the playground. Refusing to enforce the Fugitive Slave Clause of the US Constitution WAS unconstitutional. There's no question about it. If that offends your 21st century sense of morality so much, then the Northern states never should have entered into a compact in which they would be required to return escaped slaves. Failing that, if they later just couldn't live with the deal they themselves agreed to, then they should have simply let the Southern states depart in peace. But of course, that's not what they were actually fighting over.

I'm going to point out that like a little toddler, you cannot conceive of the fact that people who lived in a different era had entirely different views on a number of things. No matter what you or I may think of the immorality of slavery today, the fact remains that it was legal then. The Northern states (which got rid of it after the Constitution was ratified) agreed as part of the constitution to return escaped slaves. Then they broke the deal they themselves made. If you want to argue the morality of doing so, fine, but they DID break the deal they made. As such they were in the wrong. If they felt that strongly about it, they should have been willing to let the Southern states depart in peace.

But if course it was never really about slavery. Their own political leaders were quite willing to protect slavery effectively forever by express constitutional amendment AND to strengthen federal fugitive slave laws. Slavery was something the Northern states were perfectly willing to live with - so long as they got their cut of the profits.

As long as you keep spreading PC Revisionist propaganda, I'll keep refuting it with facts, quotes and sources.

I just fixed that for you.

Everything Hitler, Stalin, and Mao did was legal too.

actually murder was not legal in those countries when they each murdered millions.

Introduction to Captive Breeding

Does not prove there was a breeding program. You've only demonstrated that they were slaves which was never in dispute.

According to this, that's the definition of a breeding program. Your rebuttal only proves the point.

Nope! A breeding program would be a program that was designed by the owners to breed livestock. That was not the case here. You've only proven that they were captive which once again, was never in dispute.

The rights of states to own humans as property, and a balanced budget except for paying for the war to preserve their right to said property.

The right of states to allow slavery was never in dispute and was never threatened. That they were willing to engage in deficit spending in a war of national survival proves they were like every other country on earth in that regard.

On Black Confederates.....Repeats snipped.

The chief inspector of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, Dr. Lewis Steiner, reported that he saw about 3,000 well-armed black Confederate soldiers in Stonewall Jackson’s army in Frederick, Maryland, and that those soldiers were "manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederate Army." Said Steiner, “Wednesday, September 10--At four o'clock this morning the rebel army began to move from our town, Jackson's force taking the advance. The movement continued until eight o'clock P.M., occupying sixteen hours. The most liberal calculations could not give them more than 64,000 men. Over 3,000 negroes must be included in this number. These were clad in all kinds of uniforms, not only in cast-off or captured United States uniforms, but in coats with Southern buttons, State buttons, etc. These were shabby, but not shabbier or seedier than those worn by white men in rebel ranks. Most of the negroes had arms, rifles, muskets, sabres, bowie-knives, dirks, etc. They were supplied, in many instances, with knapsacks, haversacks, canteens, etc., and were manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederacy Army. They were seen riding on horses and mules, driving wagons, riding on caissons, in ambulances, with the staff of Generals, and promiscuously mixed up with all the rebel horde. (Report of Lewis H. Steiner, New York: Anson D. F. Randolph, 1862, pp. 10-11)

* Union colonel Peter Allabach, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 131st Pennsylvania Infantry, reported that his forces encountered black Confederate soldiers during the battle of Chancellorsville:

"Under this disposition of my command, I lay until 11 o'clock, when I received orders from you to throw the two left regiments perpendicular to the road, and to advance in line of battle, with skirmishers in front, as far as to the edge of the wood bordering near the Chancellor house. This movement was explained to me as intended to hold the enemy in check long enough for the corps of Major-Generals Couch and Sickles to get into another position, and not to bring on an action if it could be avoided; and, should the enemy advance in force, to fall back slowly until I arrived on the edge of the wood, there to mass in column and double-quick to the rear, that the artillery might fire in this wood. I was instructed that I was to consider myself under the command of Major-General Couch."

"In obedience to these orders, at about 11 o'clock I advanced with these two regiments forward through the wood, under a severe fire of shell, grape, and canister. I encountered their skirmishers when near the farther edge of the wood. Allow me to state that the skirmishers of the enemy were negroes." (Report of Col. Peter H. Allabach, 131st Pennsylvania Infantry, commanding Second Brigade, in Official Records, Volume XXV, in Two Parts, 1889, Chap. 37, Part I – Reports, p. 555, emphasis added)

In a Union army battle report, General David Stuart complained about the deadly effectiveness of the black Confederate soldiers whom his troops had encountered. The “armed negroes,” he said, did “serious execution upon our men”:

Col. Giles Smith commanded the First Brigade and Col. T. Kilby Smith, Fifty-fourth Ohio, the Fourth. I communicated to these officers General Sherman’s orders and charged Colonel Smith, Fifty-fourth Ohio, specially with the duty of clearing away the road to the crossing and getting it into the best condition for effecting our crossing that he possibly could. The work was vigorously pressed under his immediate supervision and orders, and he devoted himself to it with as much energy and activity as any living man could employ. It had to be prosecuted under the fire of the enemy’s sharpshooters, protected as well as the men might be by our skirmishers on the bank, who were ordered to keep up so vigorous a fire that the enemy should not dare to lift their heads above their rifle-pits; but the enemy, and especially their armed negroes, did dare to rise and fire, and did serious execution upon our men. The casualties in the brigade were 11 killed, 40 wounded, and 4 missing; aggregate, 55. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, D. STUART, Brigadier-General, Commanding. (Report of Brig. Gen. David Stuart, U. S. Army, commanding Fourth Brigade and Second Division, of operations December 26, 1862 - January 3, 1863, in Official Records, Volume XVII, in Two Parts. 1886/1887, Chap. 29, Part I - Reports, pp. 635-636, emphasis added)

The problem for you is that that's a lie. The union did centralize power. It was against states' rights and decentralized power. It did fight a war of aggression. It did trample on civil liberties to do so. It did so against a democratic country that sought no territorial aggrandizement and which was willing to live in peace with its neighbors.

We're discussing the definition of terrorism - not the definition of slavery. Killing babies is not merely a tragedy, when it is done for political purposes it is terrorism. As indeed, the murder of innocent people for political purposes is. That's the very definition of terrorism. Note, we are not discussing slavery here no matter how desperate you are to inject slavery into absolutely everything.

And I just love how you write off emancipation as a political cause. If you aren't a leftist plant, then that shows what you really think.

Emancipation was a political cause at the time. What else could it be but that? You trying to deny it shows you are massively ignorant of history - or are simply lying.

You cannot claim there were not substantial numbers - as in many thousands - of Black Confederates. That's the only point I was making. You tried to deny it.

IMHO, he and you have something in common. Both of you are leftists who are trying to associate slavery with the Republicans. Neither of you are succeeding.

LOL! You obviously haven't read much history. He's the chief PC Revisionist. He spent most of his career pushing the "all about slavery" myth as well as the myth of the virtuous North.

I'm saying it was LEGAL at the time. And it was. It was a different time and people had different views on a lot of things that we today would disagree with. Unlike you, I try not to be so arrogant as to pretend that everybody all throughout history should have had the exact same moral values I have having been born much later and in a completely different society.

Except they weren't defending slavery. Slavery was not threatened in the US. Cobb had no reason to lie about the chief concerns of Southerners being their economic exploitation by the Northern states. The vast majority of Southerners did not own any slaves. I bet the Leftist PCers are very happy to see you pushing their propaganda.

"the primary object and ulterior design of our Federal Government were to secure these rights to all persons under its exclusive jurisdiction"

At the time that did not include Blacks. It also did not include Indians. It also did not include Asians. It certainly did not include women. No matter how much we today may disagree with leaving all those persons out.....that was what they thought at the time.

All they did was abolish it, "but we didn't mean to".

Ex Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc

They didn't have the votes. When they had the votes the voted to abolish it.

They didn't have the votes because until very late in the war, they themselves wouldn't have voted for it. They were not abolitionists as they said many times.