Posted on 04/24/2002 9:33:49 AM PDT by wasp69
RICHMOND - It's only a two-hour drive from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House here on Clay Street.
It took four years and more than 600,000 lives to make that same journey during the second American Revolution, now officially known as the US Civil War.
It's odd that this nation's bloodiest war, a war between brothers, stretched from 1861 until 1865 when the capital of the COnfederate States of America in Richmond is only 100 miles south from the capital of the United States of America in Washington.
Thousands of Americans annually visit Civil War battlefields, museums and monuments.
Enthusiasts study in passionate detail the leaders, military strategy and battles of the Civil War.
My fascination with the Civil War has less to do with military engagements than with the motivations of up to 1.5 million Southern men and boys wiling to die to tear the nation in two in defense of slavery, an utterly indefedsible institution.
Had the conflict, also known as the War of the Southern Planters, been fought only by Southern slave owners, it would have been over in weeks rather than years.
As it was, brilliant and charismatic Confederate Generals such as Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson led armies of poor, non-slave-owning Southerners into battle and came dangerously close to winning the war.
My mother's and father's ancestors were Southerners who fought for the Confederacy. I'm pleased that their side lost.
As a young man I fought for passage of civil rights laws that would eliminate the vestiges of slavery and the continued denial of equal rights to black Americans. What, I wondered, could my Confederate ancestors have been thinking?
I did not find the answer during my tour of the White House of the Confederacy or in the next-door Museum of the Confederacy.
A curator at the museum understood my state of perplexity but could only tell me that it's impossible to judge the decisions of my Confederate ancestors based on todays standards.
Although slavery was central to the decision by the Southern states to break away from the Union, many causes over the years led to conflict.
Sectional rivalry developed as the North became industrialized and gained population with European immigration.
The North wanted to build roads, canals and railroads to accommodate growing industries. Without personal or corporate taxation, revenue was raised by tariffs, which protected Northern products and increased prices of imported goods needed by the nonindustrialized South.
Southerners felt they were being gouged by their Northern brethern. They also felt that the states, not the federal government, had the authority to regulate commerce and other affairs. They also felt that the states had the right under the Constitution to separate from the Union, an idea that had strong supporters in both the North and South.
Deciding whether new territories and states would be slave or nonslave became a North-South fight for power in Congress and within the federal government.
Northern abolitionists demonized the Southerners and backed them into their own regional corner. Many Americans in the early years of the nation felt stronger regional and state pride than national pride.
Lee, who did not want to break up the Union, declined an offer to command the Union Army. He chose fight for Virginia and the South.
There must be lessons to be learned from the Civil War that can be applied to current and future conflicts.
As an aside, local Channel 4 in DC had a report this morning concerning a lawsuit over the Virginia License Plates displaying the flag of the Confederacy. I don't know the source but evidently the Sons of the Confederacy won the latest round in court in their attempt to keep the plates. The report says that Virginia will now probably take it to the US Supremes.
Bump. I appreciate your posts.
"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in states where it exists. I believe I have no lawfull right to do so and have no inclination to do so" From Lincolns First Inaugural Address
To further show Lincoln's concern, consider these words which he spoke on October 16, 1854:
"Whether slavery shall go into Nebraska, or other new territories, is not a matter of exclusive concern to the people who may go there. The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these territores. We want them for the homes of free white people. This they cannot be, to any considerable extent, if slavery shall be planted with them. Slave states are places for poor white people to move from....New free states are the places for poor people to go and better their condition."
From these words one can only conclude that Lincoln was a racist. The primary reason why most industrial states were opposed to allowing new slave states was their concerns that slaves would take jobs away from "poor white people". Lincoln's republican party of that time also were concerned that the extension of slavery into new territories would inflate the power of the Democratic party because of the 3/5's clause of the constitution that allowed for five slaves to count as three persons for purposes of determining the number of congressional seats in each state.
Racism and politics...nothing new under the sun here.
Yawn! Which dictionary, Walt? And what makes that dictionary the authority on the said terms? Is it a philosophical dictionary, a regular desktop dictionary, a medical dictionary, a legal dictionary? Which one?
deduction; 1. the act of deducing.
Now isn't that a profound observation.
2. logic Reasoning from stated premises to the formally valid conclusion; reasoning from the general to the specific.
In which case, my argument functions perfectly.
Premise 1 - In order to knowingly act upon X one must first be aware of X.
Premise 2 - Lincoln knowingly acted upon X by directing Corwin to substitute it for Y.
Conclusion: Therefore Lincoln must have been aware of X.
Under synonyns for inference:
Now where exactly did inference enter into the picture? Oh wait. I forgot. You are out of substance in your argument and are therefore stringing together words by association in order that you may rely upon semantics to get you out of your bind. When all else fails, rely on semantics...
A conclusion is the absolute and necessary result of the admision of certain premises
There you have it then, Walt. Check my premises as stated above and elsewhere. Check my conclusion. It is the necessary result of those premises. As I noted earlier, I invite you to question them all you want. You have not done so to date.
You have stated something as fact which you cannot, using your own words, absolutely establish.
If that is so, please demonstrate it to be. Demonstrate that my conclusion does not establish with certitude that Lincoln knew the Corwin amendment. I patiently await your response.
But you can attempt disprove a proof that is purported to have happened. If indeed the proof is true, you will find your attempt to be futile. If it is in error, you will be able to disprove that purported proof.
I have already alleged to you my proof and stand behind it in confidence that it is true. I have stated it and directed it to you many times. Not once have you addressed it. Instead you only deny its existence all together, citing no rational reason for doing so, only your own authority.
And you can't prove it happened.
To the contrary. I already have. You on the other hand cannot prove my purported inability to prove it, though you have alleged to many times.
You deduced something and presented it as hard cold fact.
Indeed I did, and doing so is a perfectly valid argument. Facts may be established by proper deduction, Walt. Live with it.
You could have said, "here is almost certainly what happened", but you didn't.
Why should I settle for that when I can establish by logical reasoning with certitude that it definately did happen? Simply put, the established fact that Lincoln approached Corwin with the Seward text and convinced Corwin to substitute the Seward text necessitates, in order for such an event to even take place, that Lincoln first know what the Seward text was. Since the Seward text is the same as the amendment, Lincoln therefore knew the amendment.
Again, my invitation remains. Please rebut my argument and its factual conclusion as found above in the bold section. As a hint, to do so necessitates that you demonstrate either that Corwin and Lincoln did not meet (which they did), the amendment was not substituted as a result of that meeting (it was), or that Lincoln could have engaged in that meeting and presented to Corwin an amendment that was unknown to him (which he could not have done for he could not have presented the amendment without first knowing that amendment to posess being). So have at it, Walt!
You jumped in and took a plunge that you cannot now support.
Again, please substantiate that allegation. Otherwise, I may again reject it in a word. Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur. It's as simple as that.
Alleged. That is an interesting choice of word.
Earlier, you said your proof was deduced. Unfortunately for you, the dictionary definition indicates that a deduction cannont be proven to absolute certainty, which is what I have been saying.
Are you now saying that your "deduction" was wrong all along?
Don't like that word any more?
Watl
We have to keep in mind that there hasn't been any time in recorded human history without slavery somewhere on this planet, including now. There's got to be something good about this system, the only other thing that has permeated human history so thuroughly is religion. Now we might not like the style of it, but we also get a very different view of slavery. Our knowledge is based almost exclusively on southern race based no way out slavery, which was an aberation in the realm of slavery. We also have an unrealistically brutal view of slavery thanks to things like Roots, a view that is not held up by the historical record.
Reduced down to it's basic form all slavery is, all it's ever been, is an exchange of labor for room and board. At some points in history that relationship was entered into involuntarily and sometimes voluntarily. But it's really not all that different from the laborer relationship we see defined without the word slavery. We all work for room and board, but non-slaves get to pick their room and board and slaves have that decision made for them.
I disagree that there is anything good about it. I liken it more to things like rape or pillage --- they still exist and have existed all through history only because some are more powerful than others and are willing to use that power to serve their ends with no regard to morality.
Now we might not like the style of it, but we also get a very different view of slavery. Our knowledge is based almost exclusively on southern race based no way out slavery, which was an aberation in the realm of slavery. We also have an unrealistically brutal view of slavery thanks to things like Roots, a view that is not held up by the historical record.
With or with out Roots, slavery has been a moral abomination with no justification in the west since the Enlightenment, and certainly since the American Revolution. And as modern economic systems and industrialization have progressed since the mid- 18th century, slavery even lost its comparative economic advantage. Yes, a select few in the American south made handsome sums from slavery up to the time of the Civil War, but the impact of slavery was devastating to the southern economy and people as a whole. It took them nearly a century to overcome the gap in competitiveness that slavery created.
Reduced down to it's basic form all slavery is, all it's ever been, is an exchange of labor for room and board. At some points in history that relationship was entered into involuntarily and sometimes voluntarily. But it's really not all that different from the laborer relationship we see defined without the word slavery. We all work for room and board, but non-slaves get to pick their room and board and slaves have that decision made for them.
I really think you need to do some serious contemplation on what it means to be a slave. You seem to be trivializing life spent without freedom, or perhaps trivializing the blessing of freedom itself.
You're mixing concepts. In my original post I talked about how Roman slaves considered wifely chores beneath them. Not all slavery systems were built equally. Their slaves were just workers that weren't citizens so they didn't get the full set of rights, but they were paid and could buy their citizenship. I think it's rather disingenuous to compare that to rape.
With or with out Roots, slavery has been a moral abomination with no justification in the west since the Enlightenment, and certainly since the American Revolution. And as modern economic systems and industrialization have progressed since the mid- 18th century, slavery even lost its comparative economic advantage. Yes, a select few in the American south made handsome sums from slavery up to the time of the Civil War, but the impact of slavery was devastating to the southern economy and people as a whole. It took them nearly a century to overcome the gap in competitiveness that slavery created.
Modern economic systems have certainly pushed slavery towards the historical trash heap, we finally have a solid system that works well without that ownership idea. Until capitalism had the kinks worked out though slavery was just as valid as anything else out there. I think you're overly hung up on your moral interpretation of the situation. According to Marx the worker is always a slave regardless of his label and the activities of the owner are always immoral. We all know that's BS. What I'm questioning here is at what point does the relationship truly become immoral. And I don't think that point has any relationship with the word "slave".
I really think you need to do some serious contemplation on what it means to be a slave. You seem to be trivializing life spent without freedom, or perhaps trivializing the blessing of freedom itself.
In Mexico right now there are women working 12 hours a day in shoe factories and making $2 for it. If they take more than 3 bathroom breaks in a day they will be fired. At times they are locked in (the factory bosses get in trouble for this when they're caught) and cannot leave for any reason. On days when they aren't locked in they will be fired for leaving. Now according to the definitions we have they are employees not slaves and therefore this situation is morally acceptable. Clearly this is not a morally acceptable situation. Therefore what makes someone's labor circumstance morally reprehensible is not tied to whether their labor falls under the term "slavery" but something else. Something that's a little harder to define. Something that has historically existed under slavery, but slavery has existed without it. And something that has existed historically under other worker-boss relationships, but has never been garaunteed to exist under any individual system.
There is a logical falacy there. Just because a practice is not slavery does not make it by definition morally acceptable.
As to the Roman slave system, perhaps you know more about it than I. I did not understand it to be all that egalitarian. There was a major slave uprising in the first century BC that nearly toppled Rome. Tens of thousands were killed and all of the captured slaves crucified. It sounds to me like they did not especially enjoy their condition.
There would be a TINY ;-) problem with this approach: Fort Sumter was most definitely NOT State of South Carolina land! Fort Sumter is in the middle of the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. It's a fort built on an artificial island...both the island and the fort were created with 100% federal funds. (According to the Fort Sumter historian, who I contacted a while ago.)
This is what South Carolina should have done: Union troops abandoned the land-based forts that surrounded Sumter, because they knew those forts couldn't be defended from land-based attacks. The State of South Carolina occupied all those land-based forts. Those forts all had commanding positions virtually surrounding Sumter, and could Sumter to bits in a matter of hours (which they did, to start the War).
South Carolina should have allowed Lincoln to resupply Sumter...forever, if necessary. South Carolina should have just gone about its business. Sumter was absolutely no threat to ships entering and leaving Charleston, because the minute Sumter fired on any ships, South Carolina shore batteries could have ripped Sumter to pieces.
Lincoln stated in his First Inaugural that he did not agree that the Southern states could secede...but he also pledged not to harm them, if they didn't interfere with legitimate U.S. government actions. (Like firing on and capturing Ft. Sumter!) South Carolina should have held Lincoln to his word. They should have forced Lincoln to draw first blood (metaphorically, as there were no deaths from South Carolina fire, in the initial taking of Fort Sumter). They should have let Fort Sumter be re-supplied for...the next 100 years, if Sumter never fired on any shipping.
It is indefensible, in terms of the fact that no white person at the time could be deprived of liberty without due process of law. The only way it could be considered defensible (today...or even back then) is if slaves were "less" than not human. (We routinely enslave non-human animals...such as laboratory rats.)
Back then, science was sufficiently primitive that it MIGHT have been reasonable to pretend that blacks were "less human" than whites. But there was plenty of evidence to the contrary (e.g. Benjamin Banneker). Biography of Benjamin Banneker
So I agree that MAYBE it wasn't indefensible back then. It certainly is now...for a nation that presumes to be founded on the principles in the Declaration of Independence.
The only flaw in that scenario is that until Sumter was fired on, only 7 states had seceded, all in the Deep South. None of the Upper South where opinion was very divided had yet broken the Union and Davis was beginning to feel pressure. Without more members, especially Virginia and North Carolina, there was danger that the Confederacy would not be a viable entity.
Davis needed to move events that had been basically stagnant since January. Lincoln had been in office for over a month and had taken no overt action against the seceded states. With more time, the "Black Republican" propaganda that had whipped the majorities in the seceded states into supporting secession would wear off as people had an opportunity to see that Lincoln was not what they had been told he was. Davis knew he had to force Lincoln's hand or the Confederacy could have likely faded away, as would his Army, as the passions subsided. By firing on Sumter, he forced Lincoln to call for volunteers which in turn forced the decisions on the nearly equally divided states of the Upper South. Four went with the Confederacy and four of them remained with the Union, but Virginia was the big prize for Davis.
What he did not account for even though he was warned by his Secretary of State, Robert Toombs, was the near unanimous outrage in the North to the firing on Sumter. It unified public opinion in the North in favor of crushing the rebellion beyond anything Lincoln could have ever accomplished on his own.
I'm only trying to accomodate you, Walt. Would you rather I accept the fact that you are fundamentally irrational and take an approach to your posts accordingly?
Earlier, you said your proof was deduced. Unfortunately for you, the dictionary definition indicates that a deduction cannont be proven to absolute certainty, which is what I have been saying.
Say it all you want, Walt, but my questions still remain
1. What dictionary?
2. Who vested authority into that dictionary?
3. Where is this dictionary definition as the one you posted earlier says nothing of the sort? (hint: that was in the definition given for inference, not deduction)
4. If a deduction cannot assert truth, how come I am able to cite examples of truth found by deduction?
Are you now saying that your "deduction" was wrong all along?
Why should I do something irrational like that, Walt? And further, why is it that you continue to refuse to even address my argument in and of itself, opting instead for juvenile semantics games? Oh wait. I already know why - because you don't want to have to face the fact that you are wrong in public.
Don't like that word any more?
Which word? Deduction? Works fine for me. You're the one playing semantics games, Walt. Therefore I would suspect that if anybody has a problem with a word, it would be you.
That's the flip side of the point I'm not doing a good job getting across. As you correctly point out just because it's not slavery doesn't make it good. What I'm saying is that just because it is slavery doesn't make it bad. We need to judge the rightness of the situation based on the actual conditions and treatment of the workers, not the label.
As to the Roman slave system, perhaps you know more about it than I. I did not understand it to be all that egalitarian. There was a major slave uprising in the first century BC that nearly toppled Rome. Tens of thousands were killed and all of the captured slaves crucified. It sounds to me like they did not especially enjoy their condition.
A few things to keep in mind on the Roman slave uprising. First it was primarily gladiators, which was a totally different and really bizaar subsection of Roman slaves. Non-gladiator slaves were involved but they were basically joiners in the movement not instigators (and given the way the gladiators had mopped up the Roman Legions they encountered early in the uprising we have to question just how many of these late joiners were following the change in the winds, allying with the people that it looked, for a while, might actually become the new government of the Roman Empire; nobody wants to be first against the wall when the revolution comes). Also keep in mind the American labor movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, again like so many other things, the workers deciding they had simply had enough and resorting to violence to settle debts with their employer is not limited to workers that bear the lable of slave.
I wouldn't go so far as to call Roman slavery egalitarian, by today's standards it was brutish and cruel. But I think it's worth noting that at least some Roman slaves felt they had a better life than Roman wives. By today's standard 19th century factory work was brutish and cruel (or Mexican shoe factory work right now). Times change, society progresses, people aren't willing to put up with as much as they once did. Judging the reality of one time period by the values and standards of another will give you some very odd results.
You got that right - sometimes the Constitution takes the back seat to other more 'practical' considerations...
What "has done so?" The word "government” has replaced "Constitution" in your oath? The word "secession" has replaced "insurrections" in Article I? The “government” has undergone a magical metamorphosis and become “supreme?”
Perhaps – in your mind – all three. ‘By all appearances your oath is worth about as much as a pee behind a tree’...
;>)
LOL BUMP!
;>)
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