Posted on 01/18/2023 11:11:53 PM PST by CFW
The University of Richmond recently removed the name of T.C. Williams, an early benefactor, from its law school because of his alleged ownership of slaves in the 19th century.
The family argues he contributed to the demise of slavery and now argues the university should refund Williams’ previously donated money to the institution.
“If suddenly his name is not good enough for the University, then isn’t the proper ethical and indeed virtuous action to return the benefactor’s money with interest? At a 6% compounded interest over 132 years, T.C. Williams gift to the law school alone is now valued at over $51 million, and this does not include many other substantial gifts from my family to the University,” Rob Smith, Williams’ great-great-grandson, said in a letter to President Kevin Hallock.
(Excerpt) Read more at thecollegefix.com ...
Lincoln sent a fleet of heavily armed warships as I've outlined already. Sending a fleet of warships to invade another country's sovereign territory is an act of war. Facts are facts. Just accept it. Nothing's going to change it.
About this you are wrong. Here is an article from the New York times which tells the truth about what happened.
Excerpt:
The steamship Star of the West, Capt. MCGOWAN, returned to this port on Saturday morning from Charleston harbor, after an abortive attempt to land 200 troops and four officers at Fort Sumter, who had been sent for the reinforcement of that garrison. These troops were put on board the Star of the West at 8 o'clock on Saturday evening, January 5th, while the steamer was lying-to above the Narrows. The embarkation was conducted with all the secrecy possible, but the nature of the expedition soon became known -- Southern agents being on the alert, and telegraphing the facts to Charleston early on Sunday."
Here is another one that mentions the USS Brooklyn's involvement.
Good Lord you Democrats would just LOVE to re write history to suit your fantasy.
Are you all right? The Star of the West was in January of 1861. Buchanan was still President. Lincoln didn't become President until March.
Buchanan was trying to land a force to reinforce Sumter, not Lincoln.
The point is, "Star of the West" was serving a military mission, not just a supply mission.
Yes he did. South Carolina lawfully seceded. It was a different country. Lincoln sent a fleet of warships and they invaded its sovereign territory - an act of war. Nothing in South Carolina belonged to the US. Only in your delusional mind were a group of squatters illegally occupying public property in South Carolina entitled to anything but arrest an eviction.
The two of us have written enough posts to fill a book. I think this horse is dead.
>"Only 4 states issued declarations of causes."<
You cannot ignore the resolutions passed by other states outlining their reasons for secession. The fact that slavery was their reason for secession is all there in black & white (no pun intended).
>"South Carolina, Texas and Georgia went on at length about the economic exploitation of the Southern states"<
Their main argument was about slavery. Texas argued in favor of slavery on the basis of race. South Carolina argued in favor of slavery. Georgia mentioned other commercial interests as well, but its main argument was about slavery.
>”When offered explicit constitutional protection of slavery effectively forever, they TURNED IT DOWN.”<
You believe they turned it down because slavery wasn’t the issue for them and that the tariff was the issue.
But, again, Lincoln’s objective was to end the expansion of slavery into new territory. The Corwin amendment would not have done anything Lincoln hadn’t planned to do. Under Corwin, only existing slave states would remain slave states. Any new states would’ve been free states, just as Lincoln wanted.
And each new free state would mean a greater and greater representation of free states in Congress. Southern states could see that the country was heading away from slavery.
Southern Democrats preferred the much stronger Crittenden amendments, which would’ve allowed more slave states to join the union and forced everyone to cooperate with fugitive slave laws. Republicans rejected the Crittenden Compromise.
In comparison, Corwin was a much weaker amendment than the southern states wanted. Anyway, by the time it went to a vote, 7 southern states had already seceded.
>"YOU brought up the Jim Crow laws enacted by the Southern states after the war in an obvious attempt to gratuitously smear them."<
I referred to those laws as EVIDENCE that Southern Democrats literally meant what they wrote in their secession declarations and resolutions about slavery of the "African race."
>"Oh I accept that it had been. That however does not explain why 94.33% of the Southern White population would be willing to fight and die to protect property which was not theirs."<
Here’s a detailed explanation by a historian in South Carolina: Why Non-Slaveholding Southerners Fought.
>” So what percentage of Southern White families owned slaves? Unknown but its still a very small minority.....<
That’s what I always believed, too, but some sources claim nearly half of white families in MS and SC held at least one slave. Whatever the case, the percentage doesn’t matter. In every time period, people either are brainwashed or convince themselves that an immoral practice is justified.
>"They feared slave insurrections like Nat Turner's which were wantonly violent toward pretty much all White people they came across including infants. Note that the slaves being freed and a violent slave revolt are not the same thing."<
Yes, Turner’s mob killed many children. No doubt that kind of revolt was on white southerners' minds. As I noted earlier, the slave population outnumbered free people in SC and MS.
Of course, slavery in itself was a violent practice because it required the threat of violence to keep people in captivity. The fact that slaves did not overthrow cities and towns where they outnumbered free people shows that the minority (free people) exercised enormous control over the majority (slaves).
>”You refuse to believe the Southern states seceded for the exact same reason their parents and grandparents seceded from the British Empire - over money and over grossly unequal tax treatment....”<
>”And here once again we see the same thing. The South was being taxed for the North's benefit and the South knew it no longer had enough seats in the Senate to block even further economic exploitation for the North's benefit.”<
The colonists complained about taxation without representation. They had no representation in British Parliament.
The South had representation in Congress. In fact, southern states had long exercised a lot of power in federal government.
Of course I can! Firstly, they did not issue a declaration of causes. Secondly, I've already explained that slavery was the issue that gave them a legitimate legal claim to make that the Northern states had violated the Constitution. If you knew anything about lawyers or the legal cases, this kind of thing is done all the time. You assert whatever legal claim you can. That does not mean it is your real reason/motivation. Its just what you can make stick in court.
Their main argument was about slavery. Texas argued in favor of slavery on the basis of race. South Carolina argued in favor of slavery. Georgia mentioned other commercial interests as well, but its main argument was about slavery.
"Main"? I would dispute that. Texas went on at length about various causes such as economic grievances, state sponsored terrorism as we previously discussed, and the federal government at the behest of "Sectional Enemies" as Texas called them, maliciously not providing the border protection against Comanche or Mexican Bandits. Georgia went on at great length about the economic grievances. As for South Carolina, they attached that very long address of Robert Barnwell Rhett which went on at great length about the economic causes. Finally, when offered slavery forever by express constitutional amendment, they turned it down.
Think about it. Slavery was not threatened in the US. Abolitionists were few and far between. The tariff and to a lesser extent grossly unequal federal government expenditures, had been the subject of bitter disputes for generations - so much so that it sparked a near civil war a generation earlier during the Nullification Crisis. The Republicans said until they were blue in the face that they had no interest in threatening slavery. Did even the states of the Deep South really secede over slavery? That beggars belief. They seceded and both sides fought for what people always fight for - money. It wasn't some grand moral crusade. It almost never is.
You believe they turned it down because slavery wasn’t the issue for them and that the tariff was the issue. But, again, Lincoln’s objective was to end the expansion of slavery into new territory. The Corwin amendment would not have done anything Lincoln hadn’t planned to do. Under Corwin, only existing slave states would remain slave states. Any new states would’ve been free states, just as Lincoln wanted.
but due to secession only existing slaveholding states would remain slave holding states. Slavery would not be spread to the western territories. So.....they were SO angry about the prospect of not being able to spread slavery to the territories that they seceded and gave up the chance of spreading slavery to the territories? Does not compute.
Students of the period who subscribe to the South being a “Slave-ocracy” will take note that in 1860, in the New Mexico Territory, an area which encompassed the area presently occupied by the States of New Mexico and Arizona, that there were a grand total of 22 slaves, only 12 of whom were actually domiciled there. If the South intended to be a “Slave Power,” spreading its labor system across the entire continent, it was doing a pretty poor job of it. Commenting on this fact, an English publication in 1861 said, “When, therefore, so little pains are taken to propagate slavery outside the circle of the existing slave states, it cannot be that the extension of slavery is desired by the South on social or commercial grounds directly, and still less from any love for the thing itself for its own sake. But the value of New Mexico and Arizona politically is very great! In the Senate they would count as 4 votes with the South or with the North according as they ranked in the category of slave holding or Free soil states”.
Get it? Once they no longer needed those votes in the US Senate to protect their economic interests, they couldn't have cared less about the territories. The entire impetus to spread slavery to the territories was to aid them in their power struggle against Northern corporate interests clamoring for ever higher tariffs and ever more federal corporate welfare for themselves. It was always about the money.
Southern Democrats preferred the much stronger Crittenden amendments, which would’ve allowed more slave states to join the union and forced everyone to cooperate with fugitive slave laws. Republicans rejected the Crittenden Compromise.
Republicans did reject the Crittenden Compromise because that would have thwarted their aims to gain complete economic control over the Southern states via means of preventing them from getting any more representation in the US Senate. They were perfectly happy to strengthen federal Fugitive Slave laws and said so openly.
In comparison, Corwin was a much weaker amendment than the southern states wanted. Anyway, by the time it went to a vote, 7 southern states had already seceded.
If it really had been all about slavery, the Corwin Amendment would have been sufficient. It was not and did not.
I referred to those laws as EVIDENCE that Southern Democrats literally meant what they wrote in their secession declarations and resolutions about slavery of the "African race."
Were Southern Democrats flamingly racist in 1861? Absolutely! So were Northern Republicans. So was everybody else around the world. It was 1861.
Here’s a detailed explanation by a historian in South Carolina: Why Non-Slaveholding Southerners Fought.
I disagree with him. He never even mentioned the tariff, the grossly unequal federal expenditures for corporate welfare and infrastructure projects, etc. He never discussed the Tariff of Abominations or the Nullification Crisis of a generation earlier. He's just drunk the "all about slavery" Kool Aid the PC Revisionists have pushed in the government schools since the mid 80s as those 60's Leftists started gaining more prominence in Academia.
That’s what I always believed, too, but some sources claim nearly half of white families in MS and SC held at least one slave. Whatever the case, the percentage doesn’t matter. In every time period, people either are brainwashed or convince themselves that an immoral practice is justified.
Overall in the 12 seceding states, the percentage was 5.67% according to the 1860 US Census. Of course you or I would consider slavery immoral. We would consider a hell of a lot of things that were also the norm in the mid 19th century to be immoral. Women had almost no rights. The Indians were undergoing ethnic cleansing and genocide. There were no child labor laws and no tort law so if your arm got ripped off in a horribly unsafe factory...tough shit for you. There was no social safety net at all. Slavery was just one more in a whole train of what we would consider injustices in the world at that time. Very few White Southerners owned slaves. Most were middle class farmers and tradesmen.
The colonists complained about taxation without representation. They had no representation in British Parliament. The South had representation in Congress. In fact, southern states had long exercised a lot of power in federal government.
Its not taught much to history students in America but the Brits offered the colonies seats in Parliament. The Colonists refused because it would not have been EFFECTIVE Representation. That is, it would not have been enough seats to prevent themselves from being massively exploited for others benefit and they knew it. They would have been suckers to have accepted the offer. So they turned it down.
That is the position the Southern states were about to find themselves in. They were always in the minority but they could block the sectional partisan money grabs when there were an equal number of states on each side. Once more free soil states entered and sent their Senators to Washington, the Southern states were in a precarious position and it was getting steadily worse. The Morrill Tariff which they suspect would recreate the Tariff of Abominations was going to pass. It would have doubled tariff rates. Southerners knew however that it was not going to stop there. Indeed it didn't. The Morrill Tariff was raised again until it TRIPLED the previous tariff rate which was absolutely ruinous to the Southern States. There is a reason why the Southern states went from being the richest region in the early republic to what the FDR administration described as "effectively a colony" by the 1930s. Politics played a huge role in that.
Look at how pissed off people get today at some states paying more into federal coffers and getting less in return. Just think how furious people will be if the Blue states succeed in getting the federal government to pay for their bankrupt public sector pension schemes they promised to public sector labor unions. It was even worse back then. The Southern states paid between 2/3rds and 3/4s of federal revenues even though they only had about 30% of the population. They only got about 20% of federal expenditures back. The vast majority of corporate subsidies, railroads, the Erie Canal, the sewer system for New York, etc etc were paid for via federal "internal improvements". The South got far less of that. You bet they were pissed off about that. Who can blame them?
Secession was declared illegal in 1869, after the war. South Carolina was NOT a separate country, it was part of The United Sates that engaged in rebellion against the duly elected government.
Re. White , 74, US 700. States do not have the right to unilaterally secede from the Union so the CSA remained part of the Union.
And it’s only in your fevered brain bozo that Lincoln sent ‘’warships full of troops’’ to invade South Carolina.
Lincoln specifically sent unarmed merchant ships to supply Ft. Sumter fearing that warships would be a provocation he wished to avoid. How's the Asberger's today dude, have you taken your meds?
You’d do well to do some research and learn that in order to not exacerbate a tense situation Lincoln sent unarmed merchant ships to resupply Ft. Sumter.
It was the Charleston batteries that opened fire on the fort. Remember that, if you can.
Remember also your side lost the war it started squid brain.
ROTFLMAO! You want to try to trot out the ruling of SCOTUS to which Lincoln appointed 5 justices issuing a ruling after the fact saying that their side was completely justified as being legit? You can't be serious with that BS.
I'm well aware of the Star of the West. South Carolina was perfectly within their rights to deny it entrance into their territorial waters to resupply the squatters illegally occupying South Carolina state property. Lincoln then sent a fleet of warships to invade South Carolina's territory thus starting the war dumbass. Learn some history instead of just regurgitating official propaganda.
I am serious. Look it up yourself. Again learn some history Reb. And keep in mind that I’m NEVER going to let up on the fact your side launched a war it couldn’t hope to have won and lost. Your defending ‘’The Lost Cause’’ makes you a loser too.
Just what is it you Rebs are trying prove? That Lincoln started the war? A war he felt would be a last resort to save the union?
Are you trying through some divination or intense wishful thinking if you make up your own history that somehow, magically you’re going to change the outcome of The Civil War?
Just what are you trying to prove?
You Rebs kill me. You really do. You got the nerve to call yourselves conservatives and you come to a conservative website venerating a bunch of treasonous Southern Democrats.
You can choose to ignore the resolutions. And I can choose not to ignore them. The resolutions give official explanations for secession, too.
>”If you knew anything about lawyers or the legal cases, this kind of thing is done all the time. You assert whatever legal claim you can. That does not mean it is your real reason/motivation. Its just what you can make stick in court.“<
Then the legal claim is the reason. To believe that a tariff was the southern states’ reason for secession requires us to ignore that their stated reason was slavery. In addition to ignoring the resolutions because they were not “declarations,” we’d have to ignore most of what the declarations say. Yet, even if we ignore the resolutions passed by other southern states and consider only the declarations of South Carolina, Texas, and Georgia, we can see their stated reason was slavery. Southern Democrats were pro-slavery, and they seceded from the Union because Republicans were anti-slavery. They say so in their official statements.
>”Finally, when offered slavery forever by express constitutional amendment, they turned it down.“<
As noted earlier, they had already seceded before Corwin went to a vote, and Corwin was a weaker amendment than the set of amendments the South preferred.
>”Slavery was not threatened in the US. Abolitionists were few and far between. “<
Not according to the statements issued by southern states. Even if you look at only the declarations by SC, GA, and TX...
South Carolina says the northern states ”have denounced as sinful the institution of Slavery,” and “they have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.” It goes on, ”For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the Common Government,” 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 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.”
Georgia states, ”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,” and ”anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose.” Georgia continues with its views on the expansion of slavery: ”Northern anti-slavery men of all parties asserted the right to exclude slavery from the territory by Congressional legislation, and demanded the prompt and efficient exercise of this power to that end.”
And Texas stated that, ” the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon the unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery—proclaiming the debasing doctrine of the equality of all men, irrespective of race or color—a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of the divine law. 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.” Texas goes on, ”For years past this abolition organization has been actively sowing the seeds of discord through the Union.”
They didn't stop at complaining that the North wasn't enforcing fugitive slave laws. They went on and on about slavery.
>”The Republicans said until they were blue in the face that they had no interest in threatening slavery. “<
The 1860 Republican platform was anti-slavery. Lincoln and the Republicans had an anti-slavery platform, and Southern Democrats saw that Republicans wanted to abolish slavery, so they decided to form a union for slaveholding states, which means they seceded over slavery.
>”So.....they were SO angry about the prospect of not being able to spread slavery to the territories that they seceded and gave up the chance of spreading slavery to the territories? Does not compute. “<
They didn’t give up. They just weren’t successful in spreading it.
>”in 1860, in the New Mexico Territory, an area which encompassed the area presently occupied by the States of New Mexico and Arizona, that there were a grand total of 22 slaves, only 12 of whom were actually domiciled there. “<
New Mexico territory was not believed to be conducive to slavery because of the region’s climate and geography.
>”He's just drunk the "all about slavery" Kool Aid the PC Revisionists have pushed in the government schools since the mid 80s as those 60's “<
I remember always being taught that Lincoln “freed the slaves,” until the 90’s when the PC-revised story was that Lincoln didn’t care about the slaves.
>”Look at how pissed off people get today at some states paying more into federal coffers and getting less in return. Just think how furious people will be if the Blue states succeed in getting the federal government to pay for their bankrupt public sector pension schemes they promised to public sector labor unions.“<
Blue states always paid more into Washington than they receive in return. But, I don't know whether the past few years have changed that.
A fleet of warships was sent which invaded South Carolina's territorial waters. You need to learn some history. All of your PC Revisionism won't change that. I've already provided the names of the ships, guns and troop numbers in this thread. Go back and read.
Yeah? I'm serious. You claim it. Yet you can't produce any evidence for it - as usual. Again, you learn some history. By the way, I am NEVER going to stop pointing out that Lincoln started the war and that he waged his war of aggression for money and empire. You trying to push the government propaganda makes you a standard big government stooge.
You Leftists claiming to be Conservatives amuse me. Like all Leftists, you are for big government, you are against decentralized power and you do not believe that government derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed. Instead you think it proper for government to impose its rule on people who do not consent to it via force, threats and violence. Its the same for all of you Leftists from Nazis to Communists. A leopard can't change its spots.
and as I've already explained, slavery provided the legal justification to say the other side violated the compact. It was not the reason why they chose to secede. In Arkansas' case, they did not even secede until Lincoln chose to start a war. ie they left over this constitutional matter.
Then the legal claim is the reason. To believe that a tariff was the southern states’ reason for secession requires us to ignore that their stated reason was slavery. In addition to ignoring the resolutions because they were not “declarations,” we’d have to ignore most of what the declarations say. Yet, even if we ignore the resolutions passed by other southern states and consider only the declarations of South Carolina, Texas, and Georgia, we can see their stated reason was slavery. Southern Democrats were pro-slavery, and they seceded from the Union because Republicans were anti-slavery. They say so in their official statements.
No. The legal claim is not the reason. It is the justification. People/companies put forth legal claims all the time that are not the real reason why they are making the claim. If concern over the continuation of slavery were actually the reason, why was slavery effectively forever by express constitutional amendment and strengthened federal fugitive slave laws not enough to satisfy them? - and don't try the expansion of slavery gambit. We've already gone over the fact that they were perfectly happy to leave and give up any chance of expanding slavery so that can't possibly be it.
Texas, South Carolina and Georgia went on at length about their economic grievances. You can't just ignore that. Its all the more persuasive because this was not even unconstitutional. The 7 Deep South states seceded because the Republicans were pro tariff. The Republicans went to great lengths to show they were not anti slavery. (and don't try to claim being anti expansion of slavery is the same as being anti slavery. It is not. They were perfectly happy to protect slavery where it existed).
As noted earlier, they had already seceded before Corwin went to a vote, and Corwin was a weaker amendment than the set of amendments the South preferred.
As noted earlier, them already having seceded did not matter if their real concern were for the continuation of slavery. They could have simply resolved the matter by accepting the Corwin Amendment. Yet they did not. Oh, and the Upper South had not seceded yet. It wasn't just the Corwin Amendment which was offered though. Lincoln also offered strengthened fugitive slave laws.
Not according to the statements issued by southern states. Even if you look at only the declarations by SC, GA, and TX...
Yes, they put forth the legal justification for seceding. They correctly pointed out that Northern states had expressly violated the fugitive slave clause of the US Constitution and had winked at/given shelter to anti Southern terrorist supporters in their own states.
South Carolina says the northern states ”have denounced as sinful the institution of Slavery,” and “they have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.” It goes on, ”For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the Common Government,” 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 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.”
Georgia states, ”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,” and ”anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose.” Georgia continues with its views on the expansion of slavery: ”Northern anti-slavery men of all parties asserted the right to exclude slavery from the territory by Congressional legislation, and demanded the prompt and efficient exercise of this power to that end.”
And Texas stated that, ” the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon the unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery—proclaiming the debasing doctrine of the equality of all men, irrespective of race or color—a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of the divine law. 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.” Texas goes on, ”For years past this abolition organization has been actively sowing the seeds of discord through the Union.”
They didn't stop at complaining that the North wasn't enforcing fugitive slave laws. They went on and on about slavery.
Yes, they put forth the legal case for saying the other side violated the compact. What else did they say?
South Carolina in the address of Robert Barnwell Rhett:
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.
Georgia in its declaration of causes states:
“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……”
Texas in its Declaration of causes provides:
By the disloyalty of the Northern States and their citizens and the imbecility of the Federal Government, infamous combinations of incendiaries and outlaws have been permitted in those States and the common territory of Kansas to trample upon the federal laws, to war upon the lives and property of Southern citizens in that territory, and finally, by violence and mob law, to usurp the possession of the same as exclusively the property of the Northern States.
The Federal Government, while but partially under the control of these our unnatural and sectional enemies, has for years almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; and when our State government has expended large amounts for such purpose, the Federal Government has refused reimbursement therefor, thus rendering our condition more insecure and harrassing than it was during the existence of the Republic of Texas.
The States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa, by solemn legislative enactments, have deliberately, directly or indirectly violated the 3rd clause of the 2nd section of the 4th article of the federal constitution, and laws passed in pursuance thereof; thereby annulling a material provision of the compact designed by its framers to perpetuate amity between the members of the confederacy and to secure the rights of the slave-holdings States in their domestic institutions--a provision founded in justice and wisdom, and without the enforcement of which the compact fails to accomplish the object of its creation. Some of those States have imposed high fines and degrading penalties upon any of their citizens or officers who may carry out in good faith that provision of the compact, or the federal laws enacted in accordance therewith.
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 proclaimed, and at the ballot box sustained, the revolutionary doctrine that there is a "higher law" than the constitution and laws of our Federal Union, and virtually that they will disregard their oaths and trample upon our rights.
They have for years past encouraged and sustained lawless organizations to steal our slaves and prevent their recapture, and have repeatedly murdered Southern citizens while lawfully seeking their rendition.
They have invaded Southern soil and murdered unoffending citizens, and through the press their leading men and a fanatical pulpit have bestowed praise upon the actors and assassins in these crimes, while the governors of several of their States have refused to deliver parties implicated and indicted for participation in such offences, upon the legal demands of the States aggrieved.
They have, through the mails and hired emissaries, sent seditious pamphlets and papers among us to stir up servile insurrection and bring blood and carnage to our firesides.
They have sent hired emissaries among us to burn our towns and distribute arms and poison to our slaves for the same purpose.
They have impoverished the slave-holding States by unequal and partial legislation, thereby enriching themselves by draining our substance.
They have refused to vote appropriations for protecting Texas against ruthless savages, for the sole reason that she is a slave-holding State.
Oddly, you forgot to mention all these parts.
The 1860 Republican platform was anti-slavery. Lincoln and the Republicans had an anti-slavery platform, and Southern Democrats saw that Republicans wanted to abolish slavery, so they decided to form a union for slaveholding states, which means they seceded over slavery.
The Republicans DID NOT want to abolish slavery. They could not have been more clear about this. To say otherwise is just a bold faced lie in the face of Lincoln's and others repeated statements that they did not want to abolish slavery, and in the face of the Corwin Amendment which Republicans orchestrated, wrote, sponsored (Corwin was a Republican) and passed in both houses of Congress AFTER the Southern delegation had withdrawn. Even the original 7 seceding states of the Deep South did not secede over slavery.
They didn’t give up. They just weren’t successful in spreading it.
Let's try this again slowly. They seceded. They left. They made no claim whatsoever on the western territories of the US. As in they were foreign countries. As in, all that land to the west belonged to the US. They gave up any chance of spreading slavery to those territories when they seceded. *IF* they had been so upset over the prospect of not being able to spread slavery to the western territories, they would hardly have adopted a solution that would give up any chance of spreading slavery to the western territories. This argument on your part simply does not work. Obviously, they weren't committed to spreading slavery to the territories if they were willing to walk away.
New Mexico territory was not believed to be conducive to slavery because of the region’s climate and geography.
That was true of almost the entire West. Everybody knew that.
I remember always being taught that Lincoln “freed the slaves,” until the 90’s when the PC-revised story was that Lincoln didn’t care about the slaves.
you have it backwards. The majority view even in Academia was that secession and the war had been primarily about money. That was the conclusion of Charles Beard who was the most prominent American historian in the first half of the 20th century. He was at Columbia university (imagine.....the Ivy League! LOL). It was the PC Revisionists who were 1960s Leftists who started pushing the wartime propaganda that it was "all about slavery". This REVISIONIST school of thought did not really start until the 1980s. That's when the PCers started trying to demonize all things Southern. I told everybody 30 years ago that it was the South today, it was going to be the Founding Fathers, the Stars and Stripes, and the rest of America tomorrow. They all scoffed. They said I was just being paranoid and that that would never happen. Well.....here we are.
You had to be an idiot back in the early 90s when all this really got going not to see it. It was obvious what was coming. Well....here we are. This is where the Leftists were always headed.
Blue states always paid more into Washington than they receive in return. But, I don't know whether the past few years have changed that.
NO THEY DID NOT! Southern states paid massively more of the federal budget until passage of the 16th amendment in 1909 when a federal income tax was imposed were tariff rates lowered and not until then did Northern states start paying more of the federal tax burden than Southern states.
I’m not a Leftist Reb. I’m a conservative. It’s you and your fellow Confederates here who are the leftists, you’re Democrats. Democrats love big government. Lincoln started the war? Really?
So it was Lincoln who ordered the Charleston batteries to open fire on Ft. Sumter?
I guess in your twisted mind that makes sense. Lincoln’s reason for responding to the Souths attack Ft.Sumter and the Southern secession was to preserve the Union. And in doing so he won the fight. You, in turn offer no proof of what the ‘’warships’’ were and the troops you claim he sent to ‘’invade South Carolina.
Funny how you defend secession , the secession the South undertook to defend and preserve slavery. As I see it you’re doing the same. Defending the Confederacy and all it stood for.
And yet here you are living in The United States of America, not The Confederate States of America.
You’re an idiot.
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