Posted on 12/29/2023 7:52:34 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The Nikki Haley slavery tempest in a teapot continues to roil some circles.
For those who have a life and have been spending it with family and friends this Christmas, some background: The candidate for the Republican presidential nomination is in political hot water for her answer to a questioner at a New Hampshire campaign event in which she failed to list “slavery” among the causes of the American Civil War.
She’s subsequently admitted slavery was among those causes, while adding that she thought the question was posed by a Democrat plant in the audience.
The New York Times continues to stoke the story, claiming her answer could “dent her crossover appeal to independents and moderate Democrats.”
Three thoughts:
First, NEWS FLASH: For many of us challenged by the cost of living, the rise in crime, the influx of illegal aliens, and the woke agenda being pushed on cultural-social issues, the enumeration and hierarchy of causes for why something happened 163 years ago is something we do not care about. I’ll even venture to say that unless those “independents” caucus with the Democrats in legislative bodies, they also probably are not burning with concern about the ranked causes of the Civil War.
Second, the Democrat reaction to “of course it was about slavery” is rather rich. Given the historical illiteracy that dominates our schools (we have no time to teach history after spending time on gender, sex, and critical race theory lessons), let’s recall a few facts.
It was South Carolina Democrats, not a South Carolina Republican, who initiated the treason of secession.
It was mostly Democrats who, in the last days of the Democrat Buchanan administration, tried to amend the U.S. Constitution to preserve the Missouri Compromise and, thus, preserve slavery.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
And my response is that the left are neo- Confederates
People are fond of telling us that their party was created for the purpose of opposing slavery. So what do they do when it comes to a constitutional amendment to protect slavery forever? They vote for it.
Does not compute.
You may have your own beliefs, but for me, the priorities of preserving the union AND trying to prevent a disastrous war played a larger role over wanting to preserve slavery in their vote.
Why does everyone just seem to take it for granted that there was going to be a war? No possibility existed of them just resolving their little issue of Fort Sumter without one?
Lincoln stated that if Virginia would pledge to remain in the Union, he would let Sumter go. He said "A State for a fort is no bad business!"
Virginia was going to give him such a statement. Trouble is, he had already sent the warships.
Quite fitting that a saddle bears his name.
Right. And don’t address the 10th amendment no matter what.
Morill Tariff and Tariff of Abomination.
Much trade was direct, one good for another. This cost the south greatly.
Sorry... Revisionist history doesn’t interest me. The key term being ‘revisionist’. There is only history... Everything else is complete nonsense.
Well good, because I too long ago got tired of reading the revisionist history we have all been taught that slavery had anything directly to do with the war.
As Charles Dickens noted at the time:
"Every reasonable creature may know, if willing, that the North hates the Negro, and that until it was convenient to make a pretence that sympathy with him was the cause of the War, it hated the abolitionists and derided them up hill and down dale. For the rest, there is not a pin to choose between the two parties. They will both rant and lie and fight until they come to a compromise; and the slave may be thrown into that compromise or thrown out of it, just as it happens. "
"the quarrel between North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel" because "Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this as of many many other evils.
And the economic figures which anyone can look at, backs him up.
RE: People are fond of telling us that their party was created for the purpose of opposing slavery. So what do they do when it comes to a constitutional amendment to protect slavery forever? They vote for it. Does not compute.
It computes when you :
1. Consider that the VAST MAJORITY of Republicans voted AGAINST the amendment, which never made it through Senate.
2. When those Republicans who voted for it had to consider the painful alternative — the dissolution of the USA and the killing and dying of millions vs. allowing slavery to continue ( a slowly dying institution anyway. Slavery’s reliance on manual labor faced increasing competition from mechanized agriculture and industrialization, potentially making it less economically viable in the long run ).
I still maintain that Republicans who voted for the Corwin amendment did it because of the exigencies the country faced, not because they WANTED slavery to continue.
It was POLITICAL PRAGMATISM. With a newly elected Lincoln facing a divided Congress and Southern defiance, some Republicans recognized the political realities of the moment. They felt the amendment, though distasteful, was a pragmatic solution to avoid an immediate, disastrous war.
RE: Why does everyone just seem to take it for granted that there was going to be a war?
That’s a question that one cannot answer without putting oneself in the circumstances the country was facing at that time. Rightly or wrongly, there was imminent danger of the country dissolving.
Whether the American Civil War was avoidable is a complex historical question with no definitive answer. Historians have debated this issue for over a century, and a variety of factors contributed to the conflict, making it challenging to pinpoint a single “tipping point” that could have been avoided. Many potential avenues from Gradual abolition to financial compensation of slaveholders to the expansion of the Missouri Compromise were considered.
Each potential solution faces its own challenges. Implementing any of these solutions would have been difficult and faced significant opposition from different factions within the country.
Underlying tensions would likely have persisted: Even if the immediate conflict was avoided, the fundamental issue of slavery and the clash of Northern and Southern values would likely have continued to cause friction and could have erupted later in another form.
Ultimately, while the Civil War may have been avoidable under different circumstances, there is no guarantee that any specific alternative path would have led to a more peaceful resolution.
The war serves as a stark reminder of the deep divisions and moral complexities surrounding the issue of slavery that ultimately tore the nation apart.
That is incorrect.
Whether the American Civil War was avoidable is a complex historical question with no definitive answer.
Well people could have decided not to fight it, but there was too much money at stake, so of course they were going to fight it.
RE: That is incorrect.
Based on historical analysis, support for the amendment largely followed sectional lines. Northern Democrats and Republicans (though some Republicans opposed it) were more likely to support it, hoping to appease Southern states and prevent secession.
In contrast, Southern Democrats overwhelmingly opposed it, as it wouldn’t fully secure their existing slavery rights.
The precise numbers are elusive. But it is undeniable that the amendment failed to pass in Senate.
The final vote on the Corwin Amendment in the Senate occurred within a Republican-controlled senate.
While precise party affiliation information for each vote isn’t always available, historians estimate that roughly 40% of both Northern Republicans and Democrats in the Senate supported the amendment. The rest DID NOT support it. That’s why it failed.
RE: Well people could have decided not to fight it, but there was too much money at stake
The stake was the fate of the United States of America and the lives and limbs of millions of Americans. THAT was the more urgent issue.
RE: Well people could have decided not to fight it, but there was too much money at stake, so of course they were going to fight it.
The Corwin amendment required ratification by three-quarters of the states (34 out of 36 at the time) to take effect. However, the outbreak of the Civil War and secession of Southern states prevented the ratification process from being completed. Only a handful of states officially ratified it.
Even if the ratification process had proceeded uninterrupted, it’s unlikely the Corwin Amendment would have garnered sufficient support from Southern states. Many Southern leaders doubted its effectiveness in protecting slavery in the long term. They feared future Republican-controlled Congresses might find ways to circumvent the amendment or even abolish it entirely. This distrust contributed to their push for secession rather than relying on promises of constitutional protection.
So, based on this, I would NOT say that Republicans WANTED slavery to continue even with the Corwin Amendment in existence. It was DEMOCRATS ( especially Southern Democrats ) who were ADAMANT in maintaining slavery as an institution.
The Constitution is an absolute bond, or it means nothing. If Maine is invaded, Texas is bound by the Constitution to defend it, and likewise Maine to defend Texas, otherwise the Constitution as a means of presenting a single voice and face to the world outside the United States is meaningless. It is not a confederation of convenience that states can casually enter and leave. If Spain had attacked Georgia in 1820, every state, from Illinois to Maine to Missouri, and in between was committed to her defense.
Dissolution by a Constitutional convention was possible, perhaps, but when Edmund Ruffin pulled that lanyard in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861, the die was cast, the Rubicon crossed. There was no turning back.
You need to actually read those laws. Neither laid a direct export tax on any Southern products sold abroad.
The south was the main industrial and agricultural center of the nation. Bottom line, loss of the South was a loss of the majority of tax revenue.
Believe whatever you like. If it makes you feel better to believe a bunch of people on both sides sacrificed everything for people they believed to be less than human and continued to treat poorly after that sacrifice, go ahead, but it is hardly reality.
An editor with a pen rewriting the U.S. Constitution? Well that has just happened in Maine where a non-elected, non-lawyer appointee added some language to the U.S. Constitution giving herself the authority to revoke Donald Trump's right to run for president.
It is great to live in a country where a man is free to say what he thinks - without thinking.
“If Spain had attacked Georgia in 1820, every state, from Illinois to Maine to Missouri, and in between was committed to her defense.”
In regards to your theoretical, a former U.S. state in another union would not have been obligated.
Given that the union had been lawfully dissolved. Firing a cannon at Fort Sumter does not lawfully dissolve the union.
The U.S. Constitution prohibits taxes and duties on exports; Article I, Section 9.
There were work-arounds of the prohibition on “direct export tax.” Congress could, and did, tax the repatriation of the wealth created by the exports.
These taxes were more confiscatory than a tax on profits; my understanding is the import tax did not allow for deducts on production costs that created the wealth being repatriated.
A tax on gross revenue (of export wealth when repatriated as imports) is truly confiscatory.
Secession had occurred peacefully though the legislative process. There was no gun play.
The altercation began with Lincoln's skillful use of the U.S. Navy in the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. I meant to say the Fort Sumter Incident.
The South was not the main industrial center of the nation. The following figures are from the 1860 census.
Manufacturing Investment
North $892,000,000 South: $113,000,000.
Manufacturing businesses
North: 110,000 South: 18,000
Iron Production: North 951,000 tons, South: 37,000 tons
Coal Production: North 13.7-million tons, South:650,000 tons
Industrial workers North 1,300,000, South: 111,000
Tredegar Iron works in Richmond VA was the largest industrial operation in the South. In the North five iron operations equaled or exceeded Tredegar’s production capacity. Eight more operations could come close to Tredegar’s capacity.
The only agricultural commodities which the South out produced the North in was cotton, tobacco, rice and sugar cane. In cash crop agriculture the South clearly dominated the North.
But in terms of manufacturing capacity and food crop production, the North produced far more than the South.
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