Posted on 12/01/2023 6:06:38 AM PST by rktman
Yep, the Civil War was not all about slaves, it was more about control and money.
All wars are about power and money. The civil war was originally marketed as the war to preserve the union.
To really appreciate the nonsensical nature of the War to Free the Slaves, had the war been won instantly, say a complete rout of the Confederates at First Manassas and onward to Richmond, or at any time in the early years of the war, no slave would have been set free, and there would have been no constitutional authority to do so.
Lincoln's subsequent proclamation relied on war powers to seize enemy property.
As it was, something or other sparked the largest civil riot in American history, causing Union troops to leave Gettysburg and proceed to NYC to put down the riot. The USN was there too, shelling downtown. The riot later inspired the song Strange Fruit. It seems the lines were so long at the induction center that they were fighting to get in and join up to march south and free the slaves. /s
Never quite explained is why slavery in the Union states was not terminated during the war and said termination did not happen until after the 13th Amendment. Supposedly, there were men from Union slave states fighting to free the slaves in the South.
When I argue this topic, I point out that very thing to the people who think it was all about slavery. It's like water off of a duck's back. They won't absorb it and they won't acknowledge it.
Never quite explained is why slavery in the Union states was not terminated during the war and said termination did not happen until after the 13th Amendment. Supposedly, there were men from Union slave states fighting to free the slaves in the South.
I make this point often as well. I tell them that if the war was to free the slaves, they could have started in Maryland where their supply lines would have been much shorter.
People want to believe what they want to believe, and they will persist in believing it despite good evidence that they are wrong.
The only thing you can do is keep tossing things at them that don't make any sense from their world view in the hopes that they will finally see the dichotomy.
Are you referring to de facto or de jure slavery in the Union states?
If this had occurred, was there a concern that Maryland and potentially other border states would have seceded and joined the Confederacy?
The last thing he needed was to drive Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and West Virginia out of his coalition and move their support over to the CSA.
He did specifically say that if he lost Kentucky, he lost the whole thing.
A lot of people saw Lincoln as pulling a "bait and switch."
In Maryland they arrested all the pro-secession legislators, and in Missouri, they made them flee the capitol.
The buck doesn’t stop in his office but it should.
Are you referring to de facto or de jure slavery in the Union states
Both. Slavery was both lawful and practiced in the Union states throughout and following the Civil War. The 13th Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865 and New Jersey was the last holdout, abolishing slavery on January 23, 1866.
Several Union states were slave states during the war. The Emancipation Proclamation had no effect whatever on slavery in Union states.
Slavery was abolished in Washington, D.C. on April 16, 1862, about a year into the war. It got a little embarrassing that there were slave stocks and open auctions going on just down the street from the White House, or in its backyard.
F Street E Street Central Washington, DC, became the principal slave market while untold numbers of chained Africans were marched down Pennsylvania Avenue and S. Capitol Street. Slave pens and auction blocks spilled into the backyard of the White House and ringed the Smithsonian Institution on the Mall.
I'd like to understand this in as precise a detail as possible.
Is there a list of Union states were slave states during the Civil War.
Border states of the slaves states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and West Virginia are interesting as their internal violence regarding slavery was offset by what happened if border slave states seceded as well.
Border states of the slaves states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and West Virginia
Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri and West Virginia were Union States and were never part of the Confederacy. They were Union states that had legal slavery. That is a slave state. NJ was a slave state. NY was a border state of a slave state.
At all times since the District of Columbia was created, it has been under the authority of Congress. Congress could have constitutionally banished slavery in the district at any time with simple legislation, as it did in 1862.
West Virginia did not exist as a state until the end of 1863. For all of the state of Virginia, the rump government in Alexandria (not Richmond) was recognized by the U.S. Government as the official government, and this rump government approved the partitioning of the State of Virginia into two states in make believe compliance with the Constitution.
U.S. Const., Art. 4, Sec. 3: "Section 3.
New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress."
Partitioning required the consent of the congress of the State of Virginia. After the war, in Texas v. White, Scotus found that was an indestructible union of indestructible states, and that no state had ever left the union. Officially, no state ever actually seceded.
While having a fully recognized government for the whole state in 1863, after the war Virginia needed reconstruction to form a recognized government.
Re: 90 - interesting. Thanks.
Very interesting about West Virginia. I suppose one of the consequences of secession. And there was already case law (Luther v. Borden) regarding Congress having the ultimate say in which government in Virginia could be recognized, with the choice certainly not being Richmond.
Another note - referencing Texas v. White is not going to make the “States can secede from the United States” crowd happy.
Mark Levin, “Life, Liberty and Levin,” Nov. 26, 2023:
“It’s this party, the Democrat Party; the Democrat Party that defended slavery that is responsible for the Civil War. That was the party of the Confederacy. That was the party opposed to reconstruction. That is the party that pushed segregation for a 100 years after the Civil War. It is the party of eugenics. It is the party of racism and segregation. It is the party that resegregated the military after the Republicans desegregated it. It is the party that resegregated the bureaucracy after the Republicans desegregated it.”
Pretty sure mare Johnson ain’t watching Levin.
In Texas v. White, the dissent of Justice Grier is is a fun read.
Now, by assuming or admitting as a fact the present status of Texas as a State not in the Union politically, I beg leave to protest against any charge of inconsistency as to judicial opinions heretofore expressed as a member of this court, or silently assented to. I do not consider myself bound to express any opinion judicially as to the constitutional right of Texas to exercise the rights and privileges of a State of this Union, or the power of Congress to govern her as a conquered province, to subject her to military domination, and keep her in pupilage. I can only submit to the fact as decided by the political position of the government, and I am not disposed to join in any essay to prove Texas to be a State of the Union when Congress have decided that she is not. It is a question of fact, I repeat, and of fact only. Politically, Texas is not a State in this Union. Whether rightfully out of it or not is a question not before the court.But conceding now the fact to be as judicially assumed by my brethren, the next question is whether she has a right to repudiate her contracts? Before proceeding to answer this question, we must notice a fact in this case that was forgotten in the argument. I mean that the United States are no party to this suit, and refusing to pay the bonds because the money paid would be used to advance the interests of the rebellion. It is a matter of utter insignificance to the government of the United States to whom she makes the payment of these bonds. They are payable to the bearer. The government is not bound to inquire into the bona fides of the holder, nor whether the State of Taxes has parted with the bonds wisely or foolishly. And although, by the Reconstruction Acts, she is required to repudiate all debts contracted for the purposes of the rebellion, this does not annul all acts of the State government during the rebellion, or contracts for other purposes, nor authorize the State to repudiate them.
Now whether we assume the State of Texas to be judicially in the Union (though actually out of it) or not, it will not alter the case. The contest now is between the State of Texas and her own citizens. She seeks to annul a contract
74 U. S. 740
with the respondents, based on the allegation that there was no authority in Texas competent to enter into an agreement during the rebellion. Having relied upon one fiction, namely, that she is a State in the Union, she now relies upon a second one, which she wishes this court to adopt, that she was not a State at all during the five years that she was in rebellion. She now sets up the plea of insanity, and asks the court to treat all her acts made during the disease as void.
I think Grier got to the nub of it, but as he said, it is the opinion of the court that is authoritative. It should also be noted that the Texas referred to was the government appointed by the United States government. It was another of those concocted cases for the court to rule upon an issue as it was barred from issuing advisory opinions.
An inconvenience is Lincoln's proclamation of a blockade, an international act, to which a series of declarations of neutrality ensued. That was presumably neutrality between the United States and something else. Just before he was assassinated four years later, Lincoln issued another proclamation converting the blockade (the international act) into a closing of the ports (the domestic equivalent act). Under the international act, a ship that runs the blockade can be pursued on the high seas, but that is not provided for by the domestic act. There was a reason Lincoln overruled his Secretary of State and issued an international blockade. The Supreme Court issued an opinion that the proclamation of a blockade denoted the start of the war for legal purposes.
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