Sir,You may have the wrong person. I'm not ordained by the British Crown (I'd have accepted, but the Constitution prohibits it...), and I am rarely civil.
With all due respect for your attempt at civility...
Just in case you really meant me, here's mine, per yours, no. 94:
First, the vast majority of Southerners (94% as of the 1860 census) did not own slaves. : For all the joy expressed in the neo-con fantasy about the souther common man's will for the South, despite, regardless, irrespective, etc. of slavery, your argument is turned inside out with a simple Gallup poll of northerners c. April, 1861. "Get 'em," quoth 94% of the northern population (Baltimore, Maryland, excepted...)
Second, Lincoln himself announced that he had no intention of interfering with slavery... Fool me once, shame on me, fool you twice, shame on you. Lincoln said a lot of things. What he did is very clear. Shall we argue ghosts or shadows?
Third, the Emancipation Proclamation freed absolutely no slaves. The E.P. was a wholly constitutional act that freed the slaves in rebellion states. The 13th amendment freed the rest. Constitutional literalists find this fact inconvenient. I hate to btich at Walter Williams, but he's stupid wrong on this one.
Fourth, Gen. Fremont, in charge of the military district of Missouri... and so on to your fifth and sixth on the same topic... See no. three.
Fremont had no such authority. He liberated California from the Mexicans, though. That's worth something, even a run at the White House...
Seventh, ... You see, the South was providing at the time 85% of the Federal budget which was financed by tariffs which the north imposed on the South through the north's numerical superiority in Congress. The South, powerless to determine its own fate, had the choice of being compelled to continue with the unfair arrangement or to secede and go it on her own.
I just PUKED.
If the South paid 85% of the tariffs collected I'm moving to 'Bama, 1857. Must have been heaven, with so much money about. Aside from the lie, laws of economics make it an impossibility. The North, larger in population, industry, and consumption paid only 15% import duties? Danmed yankee smugglers.
If this were the case, secession was not the answer: cotton mills were. Go NC! (which generally didn't want to secede, including its Governor).
The argument is so specious not even anti-tariff southern Democrats in the post-war period brought it up.
As for control of the Government, please re-read the constitution. The South controlled the Senate. And the Democratic party (aka the South) ran the Government in the 1850s. They pushed through a free trade deal with Canada (did you know that?). They lowered duties generally. They ran the Supreme Court which ruled friendly to slave owners. They controlled the growth of the nation via congressional control over the territories and their brokered admittance to the Union.
Gee, what went wrong in 1861? Maybe a self-destruction of unparalled stupidity? I cry for my southern ancestors who fought so bravely, so magnificiently for the wrong reasons. I laud my northern ancestors who fought with equal honor the winning cause. I have medals earned for bravery on both sides.
The north's inability to live under the provisions of the U.S. Constitution rendered the contract invalid. At the time, virtually everyone (on BOTH sides) knew secession to be legal. Forcing sovereign states to remain in the union at bayonet was a further violation of that contract. But the history books conveniently overlook these facts.Actually, Prof. William admitted one thing on this subject: to the victors history.
Duh.
x, Huck, WhiskeyPapa, I really wanted to do this, but now I'm just bored.
ROFLMAO
Walt
By the 50s, there were in effect parties. Northern Dems, Southern Dems, Northern Whigs, Southern Whigs. Sectionalism. It's funny. In all our FR debates, we talk about slavery as a cause of the war. And others talk about tarriffs. Or the evil mercantilists. Or strict constructionists. Or old Justice Taney. We never even get around to old Nat Turner or old John Brown. But we don't often talk about sectionalism itself. We tend to view sectionalism as a secondary condition. Maybe we should look at it as a cause. Stephen Douglas couldn't get enough Democrat votes to win the election because of sectionalism. The South dug its own political grave before digging its military grave.
By a vote of 9-0 in ex parte Milligan the Supreme court held otherwise - what's unconstitutional during peace is unconstitutional during war:
"The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times and under all circumstances. No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government."Lincoln himself didn't consider the EP "constitutional". And he issued the EP to prevent the slaves from fighting against the union.