# Think Tank > History >  The Civil War Wasn't About Slavery- Walter Williams

## noztnac

The Civil War Wasnt About Slavery 

Walter Williams 
December 2, 1998


THE PROBLEMS THAT LED TO THE CIVIL WAR are the same problems todaybig, intrusive government. The reason we dont face the specter of another Civil War is because todays Americans dont have yesteryears spirit of liberty and constitutional respect, and political statesmanship is in short supply.

Actually, the war of 1861 was not a civil war. A civil war is a conflict between two or more factions trying to take over a government. In 1861, Confederate President Jefferson Davis was no more interested in taking over Washington than George Washington was interested in taking over England in 1776. Like Washington, Davis was seeking independence. Therefore, the war of 1861 should be called "The War Between the States" or the "War for Southern Independence." The more bitter southerner might call it the "War of Northern Aggression."

History books have misled todays Americans to believe the war was fought to free slaves.

Statements from the time suggest otherwise. In President Lincolns first inaugural address, he said, "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so."

During the war, in an 1862 letter to the New York Daily Tribune editor Horace Greeley, Lincoln said, "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery." A recent article by Baltimores Loyola College Professor Thomas DiLorenzo titled "The Great Centralizer," in The Independent Review (Fall 1998), cites quotation after quotation of similar northern sentiment about slavery.

Lincolns intentions, as well as that of many northern politicians, were summarized by Stephen Douglas during the presidential debates. Douglas accused Lincoln of wanting to "impose on the nation a uniformity of local laws and institutions and a moral homogeneity dictated by the central government" that "place at defiance the intentions of the republics founders." Douglas was right, and Lincolns vision for our nation has now been accomplished beyond anything he could have possibly dreamed.

A precursor for a War Between the States came in 1832, when South Carolina called a convention to nullify tariff acts of 1828 and 1832, referred to as the "Tariffs of Abominations." A compromise lowering the tariff was reached, averting secession and possibly war. The North favored protective tariffs for their manufacturing industry. The South, which exported agricultural products to and imported manufactured goods from Europe, favored free trade and was hurt by the tariffs. Plus, a northern-dominated Congress enacted laws similar to Britains Navigation Acts to protect northern shipping interests.

Shortly after Lincolns election, Congress passed the highly protectionist Morrill tariffs.

Thats when the South seceded, setting up a new government. Their constitution was nearly identical to the U.S. Constitution except that it outlawed protectionist tariffs, business handouts and mandated a two-thirds majority vote for all spending measures.


The only good coming from the War Between the States was the abolition of slavery. The great principle enunciated in the Declaration of Independence that "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" was overturned by force of arms. By destroying the states right to secession, Abraham Lincoln opened the door to the kind of unconstrained, despotic, arrogant government we have today, something the framers of the Constitution could not have possibly imagined.

States should again challenge Washingtons unconstitutional acts through nullification. But you tell me where we can find leaders with the love, courage and respect for our Constitution like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John C. Calhoun.

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## UnReconstructed

> THE PROBLEMS THAT LED TO THE CIVIL WAR are the same problems today*big, intrusive government.* The reason we dont face the specter of another Civil War is because *todays Americans dont have yesteryears spirit of liberty and constitutional respect*, and *political statesmanship is in short supply*.


Men will read that and have no idea what it means.

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## TSOL

I have always known that the Slavery Card was an excuse and definate propaganda.  But I can say, that the South wanting to Secede would not have been good for this country.  

Thank god the North won.

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## mtmedlin

In All reality, slavey was and is one of our biggest disgraces. I do have to agree that slavery probably would have been phased out similar to how it did in Brazil. My brother owned a restaurant in Cabo Frio Brazil and he has seen that their peaceful end to slavery actually produced better long term race relations.

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## UnReconstructed

You're right TSOL.  They needed us to fund the Government.  If not for the South, who would have paid for it?

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## Man from La Mancha

> I have always known that the Slavery Card was an excuse and definate propaganda.  But I can say, that the South wanting to Secede would not have been good for this country.  
> 
> Thank god the North won.


Then you don't support the constitution which gave the right for any state to succeed. As Ron pointed out that the deaths of 600,000 wasn't needed. The south probably would have rejoined the union when they needed the souths help and reduced the tariffs. Like 50 years latter when the duped the country into ww1.

.

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## TSOL

> Then you don't support the constitution which gave the right for any state to succeed. As Ron pointed out that the deaths of 600,000 wasn't needed. The south probably would have rejoined the union when they needed the souths help and reduced the tariffs. Like 50 years latter when the duped the country into ww1.
> 
> .


Don't be so quick to judge.

I support the Constitution but it is not a bible I follow blindly.    _Probably would have_ is a speculation. 

I believe that the South seceded purely for reasons of Slavery although I believe the North was concerned about the seperation of the Union and not the Slaves 
themselves; using the slavery issue as a platform.  Much like The War On Terror for Oil.

Remember, the South fired the first shot.   (Fort Sumter, 04/12/1861)

The North Declared War with a *Congressional Authorization.* 

-

I agree, the 600,000 deaths were not needed; I have family that fought on both sides.   But the North _was_ attacked.  

May I ask, where in the Constitution does it say "....which gave the right for any state to succeed." (Secede) ?

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## Man from La Mancha

> Don't be so quick to judge.
> 
> I support the Constitution but it is not a bible I follow blindly.    _Probably would have_ is a speculation. 
> 
>   But the North _was_ attacked.  
> 
> May I ask, where in the Constitution does it say "....which gave the right for any state to succeed." (Secede) ?


Why is it important, we would have just another country?

Right you are, it didn't say Ok or not to do it.

http://www.sobran.com/columns/1999-2001/990930.shtml



> The Constitution itself is silent on the subject, but since secession was an established right, it didnt have to be reaffirmed. More telling still, even the bitterest opponents of the Constitution never accused it of denying the right of secession. Three states ratified the Constitution with the provision that they could later secede if they chose; the other ten states accepted this condition as valid.
> 
> Early in the nineteenth century, some Northerners favored secession to spare their states the ignominy of union with the slave states. Later, others who wanted to remain in the Union recognized the right of the South to secede; Abraham Lincoln had many of them arrested as traitors. According to his ideology, an entire state could be guilty of treason and rebellion. The Constitution recognizes no such possibility.
> 
> Long before he ran for president, Lincoln himself had twice affirmed the right of secession and even armed revolution. His scruples changed when he came to power. Only a few weeks after taking office, he wrote an order for the arrest of Chief Justice Roger Taney, who had attacked his unconstitutional suspension of habeas corpus. His most recent biographer has said that during Lincolns administration there were greater infringements on individual liberties than in any other period in American history.
> 
> As a practical matter, the Civil War established the supremacy of the federal government over the formerly sovereign states. The states lost any power of resisting the federal governments usurpations, and the long decline toward a totally consolidated central government began.
> 
> By 1973, the federal government was so powerful that the U.S. Supreme Court could insult the Constitution by striking down the abortion laws of all 50 states; and there was nothing the states, long since robbed of the right to secede, could do about it. That outrage was made possible by Lincolns triumphant war against the states, which was really his dark victory over the Constitution he was sworn to preserve.


.

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## Mesogen

The Civil War wasn't NOT about slavery. It was about a lot of things and slavery was central. I mean, come on. Would there have been a civil war if slavery didn't exist? No.

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## Brian Coulter

> The Civil War wasn't NOT about slavery. It was about a lot of things and slavery was central. I mean, come on. Would there have been a civil war if slavery didn't exist? No.


"A precursor for a War Between the States came in 1832, when South Carolina called a convention to nullify tariff acts of 1828 and 1832, referred to as the "Tariffs of Abominations." A compromise lowering the tariff was reached, averting secession and possibly war."



You have no idea what you're talking about.

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## mmink15

I had someone hit me with the civil war not being about slavery argument today.  I said that while that may be true, if you ask an average American from 10-100 years old why we fought the civil war they will say slavery.  That makes Ron Paul's statements applicable even if you disagree with the premise.  
Is that a good argument

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## PHenry

"Any 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 dales.....(T)o Secession being Rebellion, it is distinctly possible by state papers that Washington considered it no such thing.....that Massachusetts, now loudest against it, has itself asserted its right to secede, again and again." 

Charles Dickens (1812-1870), on the War of Southern Independence

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## PHenry

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right - a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit." 

Abraham Lincoln, January 12, 1848 speech in Congress

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## garrettwombat

slavery was a huge part of the cival war... but it was not the only thing behind it.

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## Mesogen

> "A precursor for a War Between the States came in 1832, when South Carolina called a convention to nullify tariff acts of 1828 and 1832, referred to as the "Tariffs of Abominations." A compromise lowering the tariff was reached, averting secession and possibly war."
> 
> 
> 
> You have no idea what you're talking about.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff_...Tariff_1828-60




> The Democrats won in 1844, electing James K. Polk as president. Polk succeeded in passing the Walker tariff of 1846 by uniting the rural and agricultural factions of the country for lower taxes. They sought minimal levels of a "tariff for revenue only" that would pay the cost of government but not show favoritism to one section or economic sector at the expense of another. The Walker Tariff remained in place until 1857, when a nonpartisan coalition lowered them again with the Tariff of 1857 to 18 percent. The United States thus had a low-tariff policy that favored the South until the Civil War began in 1861.


Come on man. The Civil War was all about tariffs and that's it? Don't be silly.

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## PHenry

"But let us not forget that it (Lincoln's Gettysburg Address) is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self - determination -- "that government of the people, by the people, for the people," should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in that battle actually fought against self - determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves. What was the practical effect of the battle of Gettysburg? What else than the destruction of the old sovereignty of the States, i.e., of the people of the States? The Confederates went into battle free; they came out with their freedom subject to the supervision and veto of the rest of the country - and for nearly twenty years that veto was so effective that they enjoyed scarcely more liberty, in the political sense, than so many convicts in the penitentiary."

H.L. Mencken

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## PHenry

Presented for your consideration, some REAL history, as opposed to the victors' version dished out in the government schools:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/lincoln-arch.html

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## PHenry

More food for thought:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/woods3.html

Secede!, a review of 'Secession, State and Liberty' by David Gordon

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## Man from La Mancha

Originally the war was for tariffs and still was but Lincoln used the slave issue to rally his troops since the war wasn't going good for them in 1862.

.

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## PHenry

> Originally the war was for tariffs and still was but Lincoln used the slave issue to rally his troops since the war wasn't going good for them in 1862.
> 
> .


I respectfully disagree. Most of the men in the Union army shared Lincoln's white supremacist views and let it be known in no uncertain terms that they were decidedly not fighting to free slaves. They were Union men, or conscripts. Many Irish immigrants were drafted fresh off the boat and fed into the maw at places like Fredricksburg. The prospect of going to war on behalf of slaves stoked the fires of the New York City draft riots.

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## jmdrake

Walter Williams needs to read the southern declarations of secession, the U.S. constitution and Lincoln's first inaugural address *in its entirety*.  I've posted about the before but here's the cliff notes version.

1) The U.S. constitution protected slavery.  Ron Paul acknowledges this in his famous speech Sorry Mr. Franklin.  We are all Democrats now.  He further points out that slavery was a major contributing factor in the civil warm.

_A constitution in and by itself does not guarantee liberty in a republican form of government. Even a perfect constitution with this goal in mind is no better than the moral standards and desires of the people. Although the United States Constitution was by far the best ever written for the protection of liberty, with safeguards against the dangers of a democracy, it too was flawed from the beginning. Instead of guaranteeing liberty equally for all people, the authors themselves yielded to the democratic majoritys demands that they compromise on the issue of slavery. This mistake, plus others along the way, culminated in a Civil War that surely could have been prevented with clearer understanding and a more principled approach to the establishment of a constitutional republic._

2) Lincoln was aware that the constitution protected slavery.  That's why he said he didn't have the legal right to end it.  But he did allude to the fact that the constitution did not prohibit stopping the expansion of slavery.  This is the part of his inaugural address that ticked off the south.

*Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or by State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say.*

3) In every southern declaration I've every read the issue of slavery was prominent.  In some tariffs and other economic issues *were not even mentioned*.  Georgia did mention "fishing smacks" along with the slavery issue.  The second sentence in the Mississippi declaration of secession leads with "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery".  Mississippi hits the issue right between the eyes with this sentence.

_It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion._

I know people love to hate on Lincoln.  But he was actually seeking a constitutional answer to the end of slavery.  Death of the institution by allowing the expansion only of "free states".  Lincoln was neither saint nor ogre.

Regards,

John M. Drake

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## Man from La Mancha

> I respectfully disagree. Most of the men in the Union army shared Lincoln's white supremacist views and let it be known in no uncertain terms that they were decidedly not fighting to free slaves. They were Union men, or conscripts. Many Irish immigrants were drafted fresh off the boat and fed into the maw at places like Fredricksburg. The prospect of going to war on behalf of slaves stoked the fires of the New York City draft riots.


Interesting, from which article did you find that? Thanks

.

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## aravoth

> The Civil War wasn't NOT about slavery. It was about a lot of things and slavery was central. I mean, come on. Would there have been a civil war if slavery didn't exist? No.


Yes actually.

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## Man from La Mancha

> Yes actually.


I'm no expert on this but thinking if there was no slavery at all in the south would they have such an economical advantage of free labor to drive prices down. But so few total people owned slave to make this an advantage? I don't know and want to lean more. Ron is so great, he said he wanted two things out of running for president, to win and to teach. Wow

.

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## werdd

The Civil War was not even about slavery. It was about industrializing the south and making farm subsidies of everyone. Only about 30% of the farmers in the south at the onset of the war had slaves. Slavery was just an emotional motivater to get the ball rolling. It was just a battle to have a stronger central goverment. We could of bought off all of the slave owners for way less than the north spent in financing the civil war, and the lives we lost.

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## noztnac

> The Civil War wasn't NOT about slavery. It was about a lot of things and slavery was central. I mean, come on. Would there have been a civil war if slavery didn't exist? No.


Slavery was still legal in the north at the outset of the war. The biggest issues by far were state's rights, the tariff on imported goods, and taxes. Yes! There absolutely would have been a war had there been no slavery.

Abraham Lincoln, faced with losing the war, issued the Emancipation Proclamation is order to try to make the war about slavery. But this was well after the war started and it did not free any slaves.

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## noztnac

> I had someone hit me with the civil war not being about slavery argument today.  I said that while that may be true, if you ask an average American from 10-100 years old why we fought the civil war they will say slavery.  That makes Ron Paul's statements applicable even if you disagree with the premise.  
> Is that a good argument


What most people have been brainwashed to believe is far less important than the truth.  I'm from South Carolina. Ask any South Carolinian what the War of Northern Aggression was fought over (the Civil War to you) and almost all of them will tell you the tariff, taxes, state's rights, and slavery. I don't think any of them will mention only slavery.  

Where are you from?

The reason I ask is that I went to public schools in South Carolina, North Carolina, Louisiana, Virginia, and California.  The only state I was taught your version of things was in California.

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## noztnac

> Walter Williams needs to read the southern declarations of secession, the U.S. constitution and Lincoln's first inaugural address *in its entirety*.  I've posted about the before but here's the cliff notes version.
> 
> 1) The U.S. constitution protected slavery.  Ron Paul acknowledges this in his famous speech Sorry Mr. Franklin.  We are all Democrats now.  He further points out that slavery was a major contributing factor in the civil warm.
> 
> _A constitution in and by itself does not guarantee liberty in a republican form of government. Even a perfect constitution with this goal in mind is no better than the moral standards and desires of the people. Although the United States Constitution was by far the best ever written for the protection of liberty, with safeguards against the dangers of a democracy, it too was flawed from the beginning. Instead of guaranteeing liberty equally for all people, the authors themselves yielded to the democratic majoritys demands that they compromise on the issue of slavery. This mistake, plus others along the way, culminated in a Civil War that surely could have been prevented with clearer understanding and a more principled approach to the establishment of a constitutional republic._
> 
> 2) Lincoln was aware that the constitution protected slavery.  That's why he said he didn't have the legal right to end it.  But he did allude to the fact that the constitution did not prohibit stopping the expansion of slavery.  This is the part of his inaugural address that ticked off the south.
> 
> *Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or by State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say.*
> ...



I sent you the link. In South Carolina's taxes and the tariff are mentioned far more than slavery. And slavery seemed to be mentioned primarily to motivate other states.

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## user

Aside from the slavery issue, it would have been great if we'd let the South go. How do you think neocons keep getting elected today? And blue states are forced to subsidize red states through the federal government. If the South were separate, they would have to adapt to keep up.

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## jmdrake

> I sent you the link. In South Carolina's taxes and the tariff are mentioned far more than slavery. And slavery seemed to be mentioned primarily to motivate other states.


That was not the link to South Carolinas declaration of secession.  It did not mention tariffs.  But even if it did that still doesn't counter my main point that *every state mentioned concern over protecting the institution of slavery while only a few states mentioned economic issues and those economic issues weren't uniform.*  (Georgia was concerned about "fishing smacks" for instance.)  Really, its simple math.  Without the expansion of slavery Lincoln would have been able to amend the constitution to his hearts desire.

Regards,

John M. Drake

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## axiomata

I've noticed a lot of people are confused about the Civil War ... on both sides.  It was far from black and white.

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## noztnac

Here's a good lecture on the subject of the tariff and the "War to Prevent Southern Independence".

I've always heard it "The War of Northern Aggression" but that is the lecturer's title.

http://mises.org/multimedia/video/DiLorenzo/1.wmv

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## austin356

> Remember, the South fired the first shot.   (Fort Sumter, 04/12/1861)



The bastards were occupying my sovereign homeland........ and you think we ain't gonna shoot a few rounds at some yankees? What if the Chinese had a base on Satan Island would New Yorkers not take offense?

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## TooConservative

> The Civil War Wasnt About Slavery 
> 
> Walter Williams 
> December 2, 1998
> ...
> Actually, the war of 1861 was not a civil war. A civil war is a conflict between two or more factions trying to take over a government. In 1861, Confederate President Jefferson Davis was no more interested in taking over Washington than George Washington was interested in taking over England in 1776. Like Washington, Davis was seeking independence. Therefore, the war of 1861 should be called "The War Between the States" or the "War for Southern Independence." The more bitter southerner might call it the "War of Northern Aggression."


For a black economist to issue such a statement is real courage.  Little wonder that Walter Williams is among Rush's most popular stand-in hosts and was mentioned by Ron Paul this year when asked "Who would you pick as VP?" and he answered "Someone like Walter Williams".

There is considerable enthusiasm with many for running Williams himself for president.  Williams has endorsed Ron Paul for president.

Some historians believe that the South would have returned to the Union within ten years of secession due to economic factors.  They muster a good speculative case but it is only speculation.  Ron Paul's recent observation on MTP that slavery was ended worldwide in First World countries by the government's buying the slaves' freedom was well-taken.  Those countries didn't find it necessary to kill over a half-million people (a large percentage of the current population) in a war supposedly fought over slavery.

Lincoln was a Clay Whig, later a Clay Republican.  His primary enthusiasms politically, his entire agenda actually, was the establishment of large public works civic improvement projects like the Erie Canal which was recognized as a failure only ten years after the massive effort of its construction, the supremacy of central banking (precursor of the Fed), and protectionism of certain industry by tariffs.  He never held very strong views against slavery except the use of the issue against political opponents, nearly always Democrats.  He favored the deportation of freed slaves to central America or back to Africa.  His Emancipation Proclamation did not and was never intended to free any slaves.

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## PHenry

> Interesting, from which article did you find that? Thanks
> 
> .


Actually many sources through the years. I'm kinda' old and have been studying this for quite a few years. Some good books:
'When in the Course of Human Events' by Charles Adams
'The Real Lincoln' by Thomas DiLorenzo
'Billy Yank' a compilation of letters from Union soldiers (and 'Johnny Reb', a similar volume of Confederate's letters)
Anything by Prof. Clyde Wilson of the University of South Carolina
An excellent starting point is the King Lincoln files at LRC:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/lincoln-arch.html

Merry Christmas! Allen

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## Captain Shays

Could you supply a link to the full story. Its worth saving in my files.
Thanks

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## burt

There is so much incorrect about this article it is hard to know where to start.   It is very disappointing that Mr. Williams has written such a sloppy and ahistorical piece.  Let me just address the following as an example.





> Shortly after Lincolns election, Congress passed the highly protectionist Morrill tariffs.
> Thats when the South seceded, setting up a new government.


Hmmm.   Lincoln elected - 1861 tariff billed passed in Senate - THEN as a result, the deep South seceded?   I think there is a little problem with Mr William's chronological order.   Before the Senate passed the 1861 tariff bill on Feb. 20, 1861, the deep South had already seceded.  Had they still been represented in the Senate they most likely had enough votes to kill the bill.   When the 1861 tariff act did become law and come into effect on Apriil 1, 1861, it caused none of the remaining slave states to secede.  When four of them did secede after the attack on Fort Sumter, none of them mentioned the 1861 tariff act as a cause.




> Their constitution was nearly identical to the U.S. Constitution except that it outlawed protectionist tariffs, business handouts and mandated a two-thirds majority vote for all spending measures.


Yes....and it also made slave ownership an individual right and forbid any state in the confederacy from passing any law that would infringe on the right to own slaves.  I think that difference in noteworthy.




> By destroying the states right to secession, Abraham Lincoln opened the door to the kind of unconstrained, despotic, arrogant government we have today, something the framers of the Constitution could not have possibly imagined.


Oh bull.   Never had there been recognized a right to unilateral secession.  _"Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."_
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.

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## TheViper

I'm rather surprised that one of the big reasons for the Civil War hasn't been touched on yet.  The 3/5ths Compromise played a major role in the collection of taxes and the number of congressional seats for each state.

Initially, the south actually wanted slaves counted as nothing because they were considered a property and required to pay taxes on them just like real estate property.  After a while, it was understood that the it was actually better to accept them as a whole population count because it gave them more seats in the Congress.  The north didn't like this idea, this reversal, and the political landscape at the time began changing dramatically leading into the 1860's.  The south was taking control of the Presidency and Congress.  The south wanted to secede so they could count salves as whole.

Combine that and a few dozen other factors and you have the reasons for the Civil War.

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## Paul Revered

When asked, "Why not let the South go in peace?"
    Lincoln replied: "I can't let them go. Who would pay for the government?"

    In order to coalesce the forces in the North, Lincoln had to stage an incident to inflame the populace, which he did. The firing on Sumter was, by his own admission, a setup for just such action. Lincoln was aware that provisioning Sumter could provoke a war.

    Lincoln's letter to Gustavus Fox on 1 May, 1861, makes it clear that he was pleased by the result of the firing on Ft Sumter... "You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Ft Sumter, even if it should fail; and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the result."

    Abraham Lincoln said the following on September 18, 1858 in a speech in Charleston, Illinois:

    "I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races [applause]: that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." -- Reply by Abraham Lincoln to Stephen A. Douglas in the first joint debate, Ottowa, IL; 21 Aug 1858

    "I have never seen to my knowledge a man, woman, or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality, social or political, between Negroes and white men." Opening speech, fourth joint debate with Douglas, Charleston, IL; 18 Sep 1858    

    "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right, which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government, may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much territory as they inhabit." -- Abraham Lincoln

    "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery." - First Inaugural Address

    "I am a little uneasy about the abolishment of slavery in this District (of Columbia)." - To Horace Greeley

    "If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it." - To Horace Greeley

    "What then will become of my tariff?" - Abraham Lincoln to Virginia compromise delegation, March 1861.

    On August 14, 1862, Lincoln received a deputation of free Negroes at the White House to which he said, "But for your race there could not be war... It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated". He advocated colonization in Central America and promised them help in carrying out the project. 

    "What I would most desire would be the separation of the white and black races."  From a speech in Springfield, IL; 17 July 1858

    "Such separation ... must be effected by colonization ... to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be." - From a speech delivered in Springfield, IL; 26 June, 1857

    "The [Emancipation] proclamation has no constitutional or legal justification except as a war measure." - Letter to Sec. of Treas. Salmon P. Chase; 3 Sep 1863

    "The suspension of the habeas corpus was for the purpose that men may be arrested and held in prison who cannot be proved guilty of any defined crime."

    "Arrests," wrote President Lincoln to that Albany committee of Democrats, "are not made so much for what has been done as for what might be done. The man who stands by and says nothing when the peril of his Government is discussed cannot be misunderstood. If not hindered (by arrest, imprisonment, or death) he is sure to help the enemy."

    Under Lincoln's definition, silence became an act of treason.

    "Much more, if a man talks ambiguously, talks with 'buts' and 'ifs' and 'ands' he cannot be misunderstood. If not hindered (by imprisonment or death) this man will actively commit treason. Arbitrary arrests are not made for the treason defined in the Constitution, but to prevent treason."

    Lincoln supported his home state's law, passed in 1853, forbidding blacks to move to Illinois. The Illinois state constitution, adopted in 1848, called for laws to "effectually prohibit free persons of color from immigrating to and settling in this state."

    Lincoln blamed blacks for the Civil War, telling them, "But for your race among us there could not be a war, although many men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or another."

    Lincoln claimed that "the people of Mexico are most decidedly a race of mongrels. I understand that there is not more than one person there out of eight who is pure white."

    Repeatedly over the course of his career, Lincoln urged that American blacks be sent to Africa or elsewhere.

    In 1854, Lincoln declared his "first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia - to their own native land." In 1860, Lincoln called for the "emancipation and deportation" of slaves.

    And, while prosecuting the war to "free the slaves," Lincoln said: "I cannot make it better known than it already is, that I strongly favor colonization...in congenial climes, and with people of their own blood and race." Annual message to Congress; 1 Dec 1862

    In his State of the Union addresses as president, he twice called for the deportation of blacks. In 1865, in the last days of his life, Lincoln said of blacks, "I believe it would be better to export them all to some fertile country with a good climate, which they could have to themselves."

    The following is a quote from the London Spectator, dated October 1, 1862 concerning the Emancipation Proclamation:

        "The principle [of the Proclamation] is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States government."

    The following post was taken from Newsmax.com by John R. Lynch, a member of the John B. Hood SCV Camp 1208 in Los Angeles, CA

        "....more and more people are recognizing Lincoln and his unholy war as the beginning of the end for America. The intentionally-misnamed American Civil War was the first, most fundamental, and most significant assault upon state sovereignty by big government in our nation's history. To be more precise, it was the event that first "rewrote," or re-interpreted, the Constitution in such a way that it became an instrument of tyranny, rather than freedom. Far from what we've been taught, the understanding of the Constitution that prevailed in America after the war was entirely at odds with the understanding of the framers in the beginning. (As an indication, look in vain for quotations from the framers in any of Lincoln's writings. They're simply not there.) Thus, if it took some time for conditions to develop to the point where the tyrants waiting in the wings were ready to move (the "conditions" being, mostly, the deaths of those old enough to remember what the Constitution really said and meant), it nevertheless set the stage for them and provided an incalculable service by silencing and impoverishing that great part of America that had been faithful to the Constitution of their fathers." 

http://www.scvcamp469-nbf.com/lincolnquotes.htm

----------


## Travlyr

> "....more and more people are recognizing Lincoln and his unholy war as the beginning of the end for America. The intentionally-misnamed American Civil War was the first, most fundamental, and most significant assault upon state sovereignty by big government in our nation's history. To be more precise, it was the event that first "rewrote," or re-interpreted, the Constitution in such a way that it became an instrument of tyranny, rather than freedom. Far from what we've been taught, the understanding of the Constitution that prevailed in America after the war was entirely at odds with the understanding of the framers in the beginning. (As an indication, look in vain for quotations from the framers in any of Lincoln's writings. They're simply not there.) Thus, if it took some time for conditions to develop to the point where the tyrants waiting in the wings were ready to move (the "conditions" being, mostly, the deaths of those old enough to remember what the Constitution really said and meant), it nevertheless set the stage for them and provided an incalculable service by silencing and impoverishing that great part of America that had been faithful to the Constitution of their fathers."


From Brother Jonathan to that creepy Uncle Sam and his red & blue team.

----------


## Paul Revered

> The North Declared War with a *Congressional Authorization.*


When the Southern states walked out of Congress on March 27, 1861, the quorum to conduct business under the Constitution was lost. The only votes that Congress could lawfully take, under Parliamentary Law, were those to set the time to reconvene, take a vote to get a quorum, and vote to adjourn and set a date, time, and place to reconvene at a later time, but instead, Congress abandoned the House and Senate without setting a date to reconvene. Under the parliamentary law of Congress, when this happened, Congress became sine die (pronounced see-na dee-a; literally "without day") and thus when Congress adjourned sine die, it ceased to exist as a lawful deliberative body, and the only lawful, constitutional power that could declare war was no longer lawful, or in session.

The Southern states, by virtue of their secession from the Union, also ceased to exist sine die, and some state legislatures in the Northern bloc also adjourned sine die, and thus, all the states which were parties to creating the Constitution ceased to exist. President Lincoln executed the first executive order written by any President on April 15, 1861, Executive Order 1, and the nation has been ruled by the President under executive order ever since. When Congress eventually did reconvene, it was reconvened under the military authority of the Commander-in-Chief and not by Rules of Order for Parliamentary bodies or by Constitutional Law; placing the American people under martial rule ever since that national emergency declared by President Lincoln. The Constitution for the United States of America temporarily ceased to be the law of the land, and the President, Congress, and the Courts unlawfully presumed that they were free to remake the nation in their own image, whereas, lawfully, no constitutional provisions were in place which afforded power to any of the actions which were taken which presumed to place the nation under the new form of control.

President Lincoln knew that he had no authority to issue any executive order, and thus he commissioned General Orders No. 100 (April 24, 1863) as a special field code to govern his actions under martial law and which justified the seizure of power, which extended the laws of the District of Columbia, and which fictionally implemented the provisions of Article I, Section 8, Clauses 17-18 of the Constitution beyond the boundaries of Washington, D.C. and into the several states. General Orders No. 100, also called the Lieber Instructions and the Lieber Code, extended The Laws of War and International Law onto American soil, and the United States government became the presumed conqueror of the people and the land. 

http://www.barefootsworld.net/war_ep.html

----------


## YumYum

Very few people know that Lincoln was an alcoholic, who refrained from drinking, but occasionally would go on a bender. Do you know what Lincoln said after a three-day drunk?

"I freed who??!!??"

----------


## erowe1

> Yes....and it [the confederate constitution] also made slave ownership an individual right and forbid any state in the confederacy from passing any law that would infringe on the right to own slaves.  I think that difference in noteworthy.


You find what difference noteworthy? The Union's constitution also forbade any state from passing a law that would infringe on the right to own slaves. And Lincoln did nothing to rectify that.




> Oh bull.   Never had there been recognized a right to unilateral secession.


Yes, there had been. It's recognized in the Declaration of Independence. But it doesn't need to be recognized. That it is wrong to rule others by conquest is true whether anyone recognizes it as true or not.

----------


## Working Poor

> In All reality, slavey was and is one of our biggest disgraces. I do have to agree that slavery probably would have been phased out similar to how it did in Brazil. My brother owned a restaurant in Cabo Frio Brazil and he has seen that their peaceful end to slavery actually produced better long term race relations.


I know some people from Cabo Frio it is a beautiful little sleepy coastal town I wish I was there right now.

----------


## bwlibertyman

Oh my gosh. This whole argument comes down to who created who.  Did the USA create the states or did the states create the USA?  If you think the USA created the states you are wrong and that's impossible.  If you think the states created the USA then you agree that the state voluntarily entered the union.  If that is so, why would they not be able to voluntarily be able to leave?

If your argument is "well the south shot at northern troops at fort sumter", I think you have to ask yourself "was fort s. in the south or north at the time s.c. seceded?  Boom! State sovereignty.  The north can put troops into s.c. after they seceded.  I know the timing issue puts into a funk but it's not that hard to see.  The north was violating south carolina's state sovereignty by putting troops at fort sumter.  Therefore it is reasonable for south carolina to protect itself.

If you think it was about slavery just listen to lincoln "bla bla bal the white man is better, bla bla bla i have no intentions of messing with slavery, bla bla bla i'm losing the war so lets pull at the heartstrings of the abolitionists."  

The north did nothing at the time south carolina seceded directly about slavery that would be the last straw for them to leave.  The tariff was.  Increased federal power was.  Slavery really wasn't.

Will someone please refute my points?

I mean seriously if the war was about slavery why did Lincoln wait til the war was almost over to free the slaves? Why didn't he do it in 1861?  Boom.

Again it really goes back to the states/usa argument.  I don't think anyone can say, "I have to kill him, he's trying to leave, I want him to say".  That is just really dumb.

----------


## anaconda

I was just watching Ken Burn's Civil War on streaming Netflix last night and apparently Jefferson Davis felt his hands were tied to a great extent in the war because he did not have the centralized autocratic powers that Lincoln had in the north, and his southern states remained too independent to collaborate efficiently and sufficiently in the war effort. A possible example of a failure of a coalition of highly independent states. Interesting food for thought.

----------


## burt

> Initially, the south actually wanted slaves counted as nothing because they were considered a property and required to pay taxes on them just like real estate property.


This period of time you are referring to was during government under the Articles of Confederation.  



> After a while, it was understood that the it was actually better to accept them as a whole population count because it gave them more seats in the Congress.


This was during the constitutional convention.     


> The north didn't like this idea, this reversal, and the political landscape at the time began changing dramatically leading into the 1860's.  The south was taking control of the Presidency and Congress.


The South had practically controlled the federal government since its beginning.   Before 1860, only two presidents (the Adams), both single term, were elected who weren't carried into office by the South.   The deep South seceded in 1860 because they had lost control of the executive branch (Lincoln wasn't even on the ballot in 10 southern states) and because they were dangerously close to losing control of Congress too.  



> The south wanted to secede so they could count salves as whole.


Huh?   What good does counting slaves as a whole do for you when you are out of the Union?

----------


## Travlyr

> When the Southern states walked out of Congress on March 27, 1861, the quorum to conduct business under the Constitution was lost. The only votes that Congress could lawfully take, under Parliamentary Law, were those to set the time to reconvene, take a vote to get a quorum, and vote to adjourn and set a date, time, and place to reconvene at a later time, but instead, Congress abandoned the House and Senate without setting a date to reconvene. Under the parliamentary law of Congress, when this happened, Congress became sine die (pronounced see-na dee-a; literally "without day") and thus when Congress adjourned sine die, it ceased to exist as a lawful deliberative body, and the only lawful, constitutional power that could declare war was no longer lawful, or in session.
> 
> The Southern states, by virtue of their secession from the Union, also ceased to exist sine die, and some state legislatures in the Northern bloc also adjourned sine die, and thus, all the states which were parties to creating the Constitution ceased to exist. President Lincoln executed the first executive order written by any President on April 15, 1861, Executive Order 1, and the nation has been ruled by the President under executive order ever since. When Congress eventually did reconvene, it was reconvened under the military authority of the Commander-in-Chief and not by Rules of Order for Parliamentary bodies or by Constitutional Law; placing the American people under martial rule ever since that national emergency declared by President Lincoln. The Constitution for the United States of America temporarily ceased to be the law of the land, and the President, Congress, and the Courts unlawfully presumed that they were free to remake the nation in their own image, whereas, lawfully, no constitutional provisions were in place which afforded power to any of the actions which were taken which presumed to place the nation under the new form of control.
> 
> President Lincoln knew that he had no authority to issue any executive order, and thus he commissioned General Orders No. 100 (April 24, 1863) as a special field code to govern his actions under martial law and which justified the seizure of power, which extended the laws of the District of Columbia, and which fictionally implemented the provisions of Article I, Section 8, Clauses 17-18 of the Constitution beyond the boundaries of Washington, D.C. and into the several states. General Orders No. 100, also called the Lieber Instructions and the Lieber Code, extended The Laws of War and International Law onto American soil, and the United States government became the presumed conqueror of the people and the land. 
> 
> http://www.barefootsworld.net/war_ep.html


The National Banking Act of 1863 - Secretary of Treasury Salmon P. Chase is significant as well.




> Salmon Chase Explains Civil War Finances to Horace Greeley and the Public
> A comprehensive summary of the financial measures that helped produce Union victory in the Civil War, written by then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court about his former role as Secretary of the Treasury to an influential newspaper editor.





> encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3406400620.html
> 
> NATIONAL BANK ACT OF 1863
> 
> The National Bank Act of 1863 was designed to create a national banking system, float federal war loans, and establish a national currency. Congress passed the act to help resolve the financial crisis that emerged during the early days of the American Civil War (18611865). The fight with the South was expensive and no effective tax program had been drawn up to finance it. In December 1861 banks suspended specie payments (payments in gold or silver coins for paper currency called notes or bills). People could no longer convert bank notes into coins. Government responded by passing the Legal Tender Act (1862), issuing $150 million in national notes called greenbacks. However, bank notes (paper bills issued by state banks) accounted for most of the currency in circulation.


As Ron Paul often mentions, "Wars are difficult to pay for without debasing currency."

----------


## jmdrake

> You find what difference noteworthy? The Union's constitution also forbade any state from passing a law that would infringe on the right to own slaves. And Lincoln did nothing to rectify that.


That's not even close to true.  The U.S. constitution required escaped slaves to be returned[1].  But it did not requires states to allow slavery like the confederate constitution did[2].  That was the argument behind the Dred Scott decision[3].  Dred Scott had been taken by his master to a free state.  After being returned to a slave state, Dred Scott sued claiming that the voluntary act of his master carrying him to a free state made him in fact a free man.  The U.S. constitution didn't even touch that question.  It talked about slaves who escaped, not slaves voluntarily taken.  The difference?  Under the U.S. constitution as written (not as illegally interpreted by the treasonous Dred Scott court) states did have the right to forbid slave owners from importing their slaves into free territory.  

[1] http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/cha...ranscript.html
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, *escaping into another*, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

[2] http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_csa.asp
Sec. 2. (I) The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired. 

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott

Southern apologists do their cause a disservice when they butcher history like this.

And I see you didn't even comment on the worst part of Walter Williams sloppy history, the fact that the Morril tariff was passed *after* secession, not before.




> Yes, there had been. It's recognized in the Declaration of Independence. But it doesn't need to be recognized. That it is wrong to rule others by conquest is true whether anyone recognizes it as true or not.


These southern states cared so much about individual liberty that the enslaved poor whites to fight for them.  That's right.  The south was the first in the conflict to institute a draft.

http://civilwar.bluegrass.net/SoldiersLife/620416.html

And some of the same people here who want to claim a unilateral right of secession for the south want to bitch and complain about Lincoln accepting the secession of West Virginia.  Really, if anything kills the Ron Paul movement it will be this fetish with the confederacy and the civil war.  The argument about states rights and resisted federal tyranny can much better be made through talking about the nullification crisis which, unlike the civil war, actually didn't have anything to do with slavery.




Even the "Southern Avenger" is aware of the fact that part of the reason the south seceded is because they were angry at northern states for nullifying the Dred Scott decision and the fugitive slave laws.




While I don't agree with SA 100%, I appreciate his sensible position that slavery was most certainly a factor in the civil war, though not the only issue.

----------


## jmdrake

> I'm rather surprised that one of the big reasons for the Civil War hasn't been touched on yet.  The 3/5ths Compromise played a major role in the collection of taxes and the number of congressional seats for each state.
> 
> Initially, the south actually wanted slaves counted as nothing because they were considered a property and required to pay taxes on them just like real estate property.  After a while, it was understood that the it was actually better to accept them as a whole population count because it gave them more seats in the Congress.  The north didn't like this idea, this reversal, and the political landscape at the time began changing dramatically leading into the 1860's.  The south was taking control of the Presidency and Congress.  The south wanted to secede so they could count salves as whole.
> 
> Combine that and a few dozen other factors and you have the reasons for the Civil War.


Have you actually read the confederate constitution?

_(3) Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States, which may be included within this Confederacy, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all slaves. ,The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the Confederate States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct. The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every fifty thousand, but each State shall have at least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of South Carolina shall be entitled to choose six; the State of Georgia ten; the State of Alabama nine; the State of Florida two; the State of Mississippi seven; the State of Louisiana six; and the State of Texas six._ 

Why would the south secede so that could count slaves as whole only to write a constitution that, like the U.S. constitution, counted slaves as 3/5th?

----------


## erowe1

> These southern states cared so much about individual liberty that the enslaved poor whites to fight for them.  That's right.  The south was the first in the conflict to institute a draft.


Who ever said otherwise? Why is that relevant? And, given that you could mention enslaving kidnapped innocent Africans and their descendants, why bother mentioning the draft of whites, unless it's that you think I would be more offended by enslaving whites than I would blacks? 

I don't see how the fact that some regime is tyrannical gives me the authority to force others against their wills to help me go overthrow that regime (through taxation, conscription, and other societal controls) and install another one. North Korea is worse than the Confederacy. But it would still be wrong for the regime in DC to compel me to help it take over North Korea.

----------


## erowe1

> That's not even close to true.


I know the Confederate one was worse. But my statement was that the Union's constitution forbade its states from passing a law that would infringe on the right to own slaves, which is a true statement.

Prohibiting states from giving refuge to runaway slaves does just that. And again, Lincoln did nothing to rectify that, even when the states and Congress sans the confederacy probably could have.

----------


## jmdrake

> Who ever said otherwise? Why is that relevant? And, given that you could mention enslaving kidnapped innocent Africans and their descendants, why bother mentioning the draft of whites, unless it's that you think I would be more offended by enslaving whites than I would blacks? 
> 
> I don't see how the fact that some regime is tyrannical gives me the authority to force others against their wills to help me go overthrow that regime (through taxation, conscription, and other societal controls) and install another one. North Korea is worse than the Confederacy. But it would still be wrong for the regime in DC to compel me to help it take over North Korea.


It's relevant because you were portraying the South as some hapless victim standing up for its "self determination".  Using the North Korea example, while I wouldn't support another war with North Korea, that doesn't mean that North Korea is right to invade South Korea again or that anyone who stood up against North Korea was somehow wrong.  And again, the South *started* conscription.  The civil war wasn't some glorious war for southern independence any more than it was a glorious war to end slavery.  It was a bunch of greedy southerners versus some greedy northerners.  The greedy northerners wanted to further industrialize the country.  The greedy southerners preferred a slave economy.  They south supported low tariffs because that best fit their slave based economic model.  The poor white dirt farmers who were sent out as cannon fodder probably couldn't even spell the word "tariff".  And when the civil war ended and industrialization came to the south, those same poor white dirt farmers were actually *better off*.

----------


## heavenlyboy34

Tom DiLorenzo made a good blog post on this general subject today:

 					Like the leftists and neocons who are Lincoln cultists, the  beltway "libertarians" have taken to smearing  and defaming Lincoln  critics as "neo-Confederates." In doing so they support the centralized  governmental leviathan and the foreign policy of military imperialism  that is Lincoln's legacy. That of course is why statists of the Left and  the Right idolize Dishonest Abe. I'd like to see if the  beltwaytarians have the _chutzpah_ to apply this label to the late, great Murray Rothbard, of Brooklyn, New York, who authored this scathing critique of Lincoln and his war that contained such passages as the following:
 "The two just wars in American history were the American Revolution and the War for Southern Independence."
 "If the Articles of Confederation could  be treated as a scrap of paper, if delegation to the confederate  government in the 1780s was revocable, how could the central government  set up under the Constitution, less than a decade later, claim _its_  powers were permanent and revocable? . . . [T]hat monstrous illogic is  precisely the doctrine proclaimed by the North, by the Union, during the  War Between the States."
 "One of the central grievances of the  South . . . was the tariff that Northerners imposed on Southerners . . .  The tariff at one and the same time drove up prices of manufactured  goods, forced Southerners and other Americans to pay more for such  goods, and threatened to cut down Southern exports."
 "The Republicans [in 1861] adopted the  Whig program of statism and big government; protective tariffs,  subsidies to big business, strong central government, large-scale public  works, and cheap credit spurred by government."
 "[Lincoln's] major emphasis was on Whig economic statism . . . Lincoln's major focus was on raising taxes . . ."
 "In his first inaugural, Lincoln was  conciliatory about maintaining slavery; what he was hard-line about  toward the South was insistence on collecting all the customs tariffs in  that region."
 "Lincoln was a master politician, which means that he was a consummate conniver, manipulator, and liar."
 "Lying to South Carolina, Abraham Lincoln  managed to do what Franklin D. Roosevelt and Henry Stimson did at Pearl  Harbor 80 years later — maneuvered the Southerners into firing the  first shot."
 "There is no heresy greater, nor  political theory more pernicious, than sacralizing the secular. But this  monstrous process is precisely what happened when Abraham Lincolnband  his northern colleagues made a god out of the Union."
 "Sherman's infamous March through Georgia  was one of the great war crimes, and crimes against humanity, of the  past century-and-a-half."
 "[B]y targeting and butchering civilians,  Lincoln and Grant and Sherman paved the way for all the genocidal  horrors of the monstrous 20th century."

----------


## erowe1

> It's relevant because you were portraying the South as some hapless victim standing up for its "self determination".


No I wasn't. They don't have to be hapless victims standing up for self determination or anything else in order for it to be wrong for me to conquer them and rule them without their consent and force you to help me do it. And even if doing that makes them better off, it's still wrong.

----------


## jmdrake

> I know the Confederate one was worse. But my statement was that the Union's constitution forbade its states from passing a law that would infringe on the right to own slaves, which is a true statement.


It's a true statement only with tortured parsing.  If Ron Paul was somewhat successful in his marijuana law legislation and the law said "States can legalize marijuana for anyone over 21", technically you *could* say that such a law would prevent states from passing "a law" allowing for marijuana usage.

So here's a clean up of the language.  The constitution at the time did prevent the states from passing *certain* laws restricting slavery, but the confederate constitution prohibited states from passing *any* law restricting slavery.  That's the point that the person *you* were responding to was making.  He was talking about apples and you made a comparison to oranges.




> Prohibiting states from giving refuge to runaway slaves does just that. And again, Lincoln did nothing to rectify that, even when the states and Congress sans the confederacy probably could have.


Lincoln attempted compensated emancipation with the slave states that didn't leave the Union and in D.C. he was successful.  I'm not saying this to praise Lincoln, but sometimes your side gets ridiculous in its attacks on the man.  Really, you're fighting a war, you have a few slave states who haven't left, and you're going to antagonize them too?  To what purpose?  And how many congressman and senators are going to sign on to a law that could very well derail the war effort?  And before  you say "Well he should have said to hell with the risks and gone with the more radical plan" then answer this.  Why is compensated emancipation not good enough when Lincoln proposed it, but perfectly fine when Ron Paul proposes it after the fact?  And don't give me any "Lincoln wanted to force all the slave to go back to Africa" because I've already done the research and I know that's not true.

----------


## jmdrake

> No I wasn't. They don't have to be hapless victims standing up for self determination or anything else in order for it to be wrong for me to conquer them and rule them without their consent and force you to help me do it. And even if doing that makes them better off, it's still wrong.


You can't make a moral claim for self determination if part of your reasoning is to take away someone else's right to self determination.  If you want to make a equitable claim you must come to the table with clean hands.  Anyone who doesn't understand that just doesn't understand ethics.

----------


## jmdrake

Yeah, except it's not historically accurate.  But hey, being historically accurate doesn't matter as long as you're defending the south right?  I've long lost respect for DiLorenzo for his fast and loose use of American history.  The Morrill Tariff not only was not passed before secession *but it could not have been passed without secession*.  And why did these rich southern planters not go out and fight their own war themselves?  Why did they insist on drafting poor white dirt farmers, sharecroppers, and overseers that they treated worse than even black slaves to fight for them?  People here are quick to point out how Lincoln instituted a draft, but conveniently forget the south instituted a draft first.




> Tom DiLorenzo made a good blog post on this general subject today:
> 
>  					Like the leftists and neocons who are Lincoln cultists, the  beltway "libertarians" have taken to smearing  and defaming Lincoln  critics as "neo-Confederates." In doing so they support the centralized  governmental leviathan and the foreign policy of military imperialism  that is Lincoln's legacy. That of course is why statists of the Left and  the Right idolize Dishonest Abe. I'd like to see if the  beltwaytarians have the _chutzpah_ to apply this label to the late, great Murray Rothbard, of Brooklyn, New York, who authored this scathing critique of Lincoln and his war that contained such passages as the following:
>  "The two just wars in American history were the American Revolution and the War for Southern Independence."
>  "If the Articles of Confederation could  be treated as a scrap of paper, if delegation to the confederate  government in the 1780s was revocable, how could the central government  set up under the Constitution, less than a decade later, claim _its_  powers were permanent and revocable? . . . [T]hat monstrous illogic is  precisely the doctrine proclaimed by the North, by the Union, during the  War Between the States."
>  "One of the central grievances of the  South . . . was the tariff that Northerners imposed on Southerners . . .  The tariff at one and the same time drove up prices of manufactured  goods, forced Southerners and other Americans to pay more for such  goods, and threatened to cut down Southern exports."
>  "The Republicans [in 1861] adopted the  Whig program of statism and big government; protective tariffs,  subsidies to big business, strong central government, large-scale public  works, and cheap credit spurred by government."
>  "[Lincoln's] major emphasis was on Whig economic statism . . . Lincoln's major focus was on raising taxes . . ."
>  "In his first inaugural, Lincoln was  conciliatory about maintaining slavery; what he was hard-line about  toward the South was insistence on collecting all the customs tariffs in  that region."
> ...

----------


## heavenlyboy34



----------


## heavenlyboy34

> Yeah, except it's not historically accurate.  But hey, being historically accurate doesn't matter as long as you're defending the south right?


 Apparently not if you're defending the North either.   ETA: Rothbard came to similar conclusions, and he could hardly be accused as playing fast and loose with the facts.

----------


## erowe1

> You can't make a moral claim for self determination if part of your reasoning is to take away someone else's right to self determination.  If you want to make a equitable claim you must come to the table with clean hands.  Anyone who doesn't understand that just doesn't understand ethics.


I might not understand ethics. But I don't understand or accept that. The wrongness of the Lincoln regime's subjugation of the confederate states (as well as his subjugation of the Union states in forcing them to help him do so) doesn't depend on the cleanness of any of those Confederates' hands.

----------


## Travlyr

> When the Southern states walked out of Congress on March 27, 1861, the quorum to conduct business under the Constitution was lost. The only votes that Congress could lawfully take, under Parliamentary Law, were those to set the time to reconvene, take a vote to get a quorum, and vote to adjourn and set a date, time, and place to reconvene at a later time, but instead, Congress abandoned the House and Senate without setting a date to reconvene. Under the parliamentary law of Congress, when this happened, Congress became sine die (pronounced see-na dee-a; literally "without day") and thus when Congress adjourned sine die, it ceased to exist as a lawful deliberative body, and the only lawful, constitutional power that could declare war was no longer lawful, or in session.
> 
> The Southern states, by virtue of their secession from the Union, also ceased to exist sine die, and some state legislatures in the Northern bloc also adjourned sine die, and thus, all the states which were parties to creating the Constitution ceased to exist. President Lincoln executed the first executive order written by any President on April 15, 1861, Executive Order 1, and the nation has been ruled by the President under executive order ever since. When Congress eventually did reconvene, it was reconvened under the military authority of the Commander-in-Chief and not by Rules of Order for Parliamentary bodies or by Constitutional Law; placing the American people under martial rule ever since that national emergency declared by President Lincoln. The Constitution for the United States of America temporarily ceased to be the law of the land, and the President, Congress, and the Courts unlawfully presumed that they were free to remake the nation in their own image, whereas, lawfully, no constitutional provisions were in place which afforded power to any of the actions which were taken which presumed to place the nation under the new form of control.
> 
> President Lincoln knew that he had no authority to issue any executive order, and thus he commissioned General Orders No. 100 (April 24, 1863) as a special field code to govern his actions under martial law and which justified the seizure of power, which extended the laws of the District of Columbia, and which fictionally implemented the provisions of Article I, Section 8, Clauses 17-18 of the Constitution beyond the boundaries of Washington, D.C. and into the several states. General Orders No. 100, also called the Lieber Instructions and the Lieber Code, extended The Laws of War and International Law onto American soil, and the United States government became the presumed conqueror of the people and the land. 
> 
> http://www.barefootsworld.net/war_ep.html


Simply excellent.

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## bwlibertyman

Why aren't you guys talking about the main issue of war?  The states created the union, therefore the states can leave the union.  Is there a reasonable argument says "you can't leave the union because I uh don't want you to and uh I want us to stay together and I uh won't let you."  I can't think of any good reason.

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## heavenlyboy34

> Why aren't you guys talking about the main issue of war?  The states created the union, therefore the states can leave the union.  Is there a reasonable argument says "you can't leave the union because I uh don't want you to and uh I want us to stay together and I uh won't let you."  I can't think of any good reason.


 Great point.  IOU a +rep

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## TheViper

> What good does counting slaves as a whole do for you when you are out of the Union?





> Have you actually read the confederate constitution?
> 
> _(3) Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States, which may be included within this Confederacy, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all slaves. ,The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the Confederate States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct. The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every fifty thousand, but each State shall have at least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of South Carolina shall be entitled to choose six; the State of Georgia ten; the State of Alabama nine; the State of Florida two; the State of Mississippi seven; the State of Louisiana six; and the State of Texas six._ 
> 
> Why would the south secede so that could count slaves as whole only to write a constitution that, like the U.S. constitution, counted slaves as 3/5th?


 Perhaps I should have worded it better.  Not so much count them whole but all states count them the same.  The point was taxes and representation were unequal under the divided south/north system.  By seceding, they could count them however they wanted so long as all states counted them the same.

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## burt

> Why aren't you guys talking about the main issue of war?  The states created the union, therefore the states can leave the union.


The states did not create the Union.  *We, the People* did.   Delegates representing the People of each state met in convention to draw up the constitution.  It was ratified by the People in conventions in each state.   If the states had ratified the constitution, it would have been ratified by state legislatures.  It was not.    


> Is there a reasonable argument says "you can't leave the union because I uh don't want you to and uh I want us to stay together and I uh won't let you."  I can't think of any good reason.


There is, if you are referring to legal, unilateral secession.  Prior to the Constitution, the US operated under the Articles of Confederation and *Perpetual Union*.   There was no legal power of unilateral secession recognized in the Articles or prior to them.   The Preamble to the US Constitution begins: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union....   When the Constitution was ratified, each state ceded certain powers to the national government.  One of those powers ceded was being the be-all and end-all when it came to disputes with the other states or the federal government.  That was vested with the Supreme Court.   Every state entering the Union agreed to that.  A dispute over whether there existed a legal power of unilateral secession could only be decided there.    

There is also the natural right of rebellion, or revolution, if you prefer.   That is the right that is being referred to in the DOI, Lincoln's earlier speech, etc.   No one doubted that right existed.   But it should not be confused with a legal power of unilateral secession.

With the South so desperately wanting the US to purchase, or otherwise "acquire" Cuba from Spain, Stephen Douglas pondered that, if the purchase had gone through for $300 million, and the southern claims of a right of secession were valid, that the day after Cuba's purchase, she could simply secede and return to Spain, and again go up for sale to the highest bidder.

I would just ask this.   If people move into a territory owned by a nation, later have enough population to apply for statehood, get granted statehood and agree to its terms, and then decide they want out, do they get to take the territory with them?

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## Cutlerzzz

Slavery was one of several reasons for Southern succession, along with tariffs, state sovereignty, and a few minor issues. Though the North and Lincoln did not consider slavery a priority at all. Williams is partially correct.

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## Cutlerzzz

> The states did not create the Union.  *We, the People* did.   Delegates representing the People of each state met in convention to draw up the constitution.  It was ratified by the People in conventions in each state.   If the states had ratified the constitution, it would have been ratified by state legislatures.  It was not.    There is, if you are referring to legal, unilateral secession.  Prior to the Constitution, the US operated under the Articles of Confederation and *Perpetual Union*.   There was no legal power of unilateral secession recognized in the Articles or prior to them.   The Preamble to the US Constitution begins: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union....   When the Constitution was ratified, each state ceded certain powers to the national government.  One of those powers ceded was being the be-all and end-all when it came to disputes with the other states or the federal government.  That was vested with the Supreme Court.   Every state entering the Union agreed to that.  A dispute over whether there existed a legal power of unilateral secession could only be decided there.    
> 
> There is also the natural right of rebellion, or revolution, if you prefer.   That is the right that is being referred to in the DOI, Lincoln's earlier speech, etc.   No one doubted that right existed.   But it should not be confused with a legal power of unilateral secession.
> 
> With the South so desperately wanting the US to purchase, or otherwise "acquire" Cuba from Spain, Stephen Douglas pondered that, if the purchase had gone through for $300 million, and the southern claims of a right of secession were valid, that the day after Cuba's purchase, she could simply secede and return to Spain, and again go up for sale to the highest bidder.
> 
> I would just ask this.   If people move into a territory owned by a nation, later have enough population to apply for statehood, get granted statehood and agree to its terms, and then decide they want out, do they get to take the territory with them?


Seriously?

The fact is, the states *did* ratify the Constitution. The fact is indisputable. The states, individually, had their constituents decide whether or not they want their state to ratify the Constitution. 

A good portion of the people did not even support the Revolution. Another huge chunk of those who did wanted to keep the Articles of Confederation. So your argument is that a slightly larger fraction of the mobs in the streets decided that they should have their individual state, the only state they had control over, ratify the Constitution, and that is it somehow means that all of the states are stuck in it forever? 

The Tenth Amendment protects the states right to secession.

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## bwlibertyman

I don't think you need to bring up the articles of confederation.  At the time of secession we were under the constitution. I think if you voluntarily enter an agreement and there isn't anything in the contract that says you can't leave that you should be able to leave.  The words union doesn't mean that you can't leave.

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## burt

> Slavery was one of several reasons for Southern succession, along with tariffs, state sovereignty, and a few minor issues. Though the North and Lincoln did not consider slavery a priority at all. Williams is partially correct.


The issue of tariffs was a red herring.   If you would actually study the various ante-bellum tariff acts and their schedules, as well as the debates in Congress (or rather lack of) you will find that they were little more than another everyday political give-and-take issue that windbag politicians make their living on.   Look for vitriol dripping speech,  violence, anti-tax protests and parties being formed over tariffs and you'll be left wanting.  The average southerner knew nothing about them, and had no more idea of how much they might affect his costs than the person today does.   Most of the products he bought were made in the North, not in Europe.  His northern and western countrymen bought the same products (in greater numbers) that he did and carried the same burden, when any. (the article that brought in the most tariff revenue was not iron or cotton or wool textile - it was sugar)  

Hostility towards slavery on the other hand monopolized the national discourse for years.   It poisoned politics and sectional relations.   It was the cause of violence and enmity across the US.  It was caustic in all its traits.   The Republican Party was formed to keep the territories from becoming a nursery for slavery and to choke it off by confining it to where it then existed.  The southern oligarchy of slaveholders wanted the US to expand its holdings across the Caribbean and Mexico. Slavery was the root cause of every bit of sectional bitterness that divided the nation.  

"Tariffs, state sovereignty and a few minor issues" does not belong in the same room with slavery as the cause of secession.

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## burt

> Seriously?


Seriously.   Delegates were chosen to represent the People who then met in ratifying conventions.   The state governments had no involvement in the process.  If specified in amendments, state governments can ratify constitutional amendments if they meet specifically for that purpose, but the constitution was only ratified in convention by delegates.  They were organized by state, but it was not state legislatures that ratified.  The fact is that the Constitution was a compact between "We the People" and not "We the States."

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## burt

> I don't think you need to bring up the articles of confederation.  At the time of secession we were under the constitution.


That might be a part of our difference here.  I am arguing history as it happened, not political philosophy. In history it is relevant to understand the evolution of events.  The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union did not recognize any power of the right of secession nor was any power recognized prior to that.  It was not a power to be retained as it did not exist in any compact or laws.  The natural right of rebellion was what was referred to in the DOI.   (we rebelled against England -no one thought we seceded)  The Constitution built on this in "forming a more perfect Union".  




> I think if you voluntarily enter an agreement and there isn't anything in the contract that says you can't leave that you should be able to leave.  The words union doesn't mean that you can't leave.


So, you think the default nature of agreements and contracts are that they are binding only for as long as you feel like being bound by them.  Any party, for any reason, without appeal to any form of arbitration can dissolve a contract.  Why bother writing a constitution, or debating whether or not to ratify it?  You can simply void it any time you want.   That may be your understanding of what our founders did at the Constitutional Convention, but I doubt any of them would agree with you.

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## burt

> The north can put troops into s.c. after they seceded.


Major Anderson and his small garrison were stationed in Charleston Harbor before South Carolina seceded. 


> I know the timing issue puts into a funk but it's not that hard to see.


I don't know what that means.  


> The north was violating south carolina's state sovereignty by putting troops at fort sumter.


The forts in Charleston Harbor were owned by the US government.  Sumter was still under construction on land deeded to the US by South Carolina.  From the perspective of South Carolina, which is obviously the one you take, Sumter must be seized and the US routed out.   But from the perspective of the US government, the secession was an illegal rebellion and the confederacy was not recognized.   It is not hard to figure which perspective should have dictated the US policy against capitulation to rebels.   


> Therefore it is reasonable for south carolina to protect itself.


Major Anderson was under orders to maintain the forts in Charleston Harbor and to avoid conflict.  He moved his garrison from Moultrie out to Sumter because he suspected an attack against him at Moultrie was being planned.   He did not interfere with shipping traffic nor present any danger to Charleston.   He was virtually sitting in an island POW camp.  Anderson's occupying Sumter was not an issue of state sovereignty.  In the real world it was an issue of whether or not the Confederacy had the power to expel them, giving them legitimacy, or whether the US had the power to stay put, making the the Confederacy look impotent.  The Confederacy at this point was not a great success.  It was rather stillborn.   Of 15 slave states, only 7 had seceded, and there was nothing in the wind to suggest that the crown jewel of the slave states, Virginia (and to a lesser extent, Tenn) was going to join her sister slave states.   All Lincoln had to do was maintain the status quo and the confederacy was doomed to crumble.   South Carolina didn't build all those batteries pointed at Sumter because they were afraid of an assault on Charleston.   They needed a glorious bloodletting and stomping of the US to galvanize the slave states and bring the sisters into the Confederacy.   It was do or die for Davis.   




> If you think it was about slavery just listen to lincoln "bla bla bal the white man is better, bla bla bla i have no intentions of messing with slavery, bla bla bla i'm losing the war so lets pull at the heartstrings of the abolitionists."


1) Lincoln thought,as did all whites, that the negro race was inferior to the white race.  Furthermore, prior to the war, he did not see how they could peacefully co-exist with the white race in society, as did few whites think.   But he did not think that meant they should be enslaved.   Lincoln was always anti-slavery.  2) Lincoln recognized, and spoke about it repeatedly during debates, that the presidency had no constitutional power to interfere with slavery *in the states where it existed*.  That is not an indication that Lincoln nor the Republican Party was not anti-slavery.   3) "losing the war so lets pull at heartstrings of abolitionists?   What are you talking about?




> The north did nothing at the time south carolina seceded directly about slavery that would be the last straw for them to leave.  The tariff was.  Increased federal power was.  Slavery really wasn't.


Nothing could be further from the truth.  The slave oligarchy drove the South to secede after Lincoln's election (and before his taking office) because the opportunity to do so would never be better.  Secessionists had no problem admitting this.   They did it often and clearly.   They took off because they had lost control of the presidency to the Black Republicans who weren't even on their ballots.  They took off to protect the basis of their economy and society - slave labor.  They were crystal clear about it.  Listen to them.




> I mean seriously if the war was about slavery why did Lincoln wait til the war was almost over to free the slaves? Why didn't he do it in 1861?  Boom.


More like fizzle.   The question of what the war was about is compound.  The question must be what was it "about" for who and when.   In the beginning for the US it was about preserving the Union and putting down this traitorous rebellion.  For the South it was about the need to preserve slavery.  If you are referring to the EP, it was a measure that built on the confiscation acts.  It was a proclamation issued as a war power that could only be applicable in areas then in rebellion.  It had many facets to its effectiveness, not the least being that as Union troops took control of areas in rebellion, it permanently freed the slaves there.  This was very demoralizing for confederate soldiers in the field.

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## burt

> I think if you voluntarily enter an agreement and there isn't anything in the contract that says you can't leave that you should be able to leave.


Let me take another shot at this.   First lets get this "if there isn't anything that says you can't leave" thing out of the way.  A contract that is voidable by any party at any time for any reason is not a contract.  It is nothing.  If you think it is, then please give me an example, and then persuade me that the Constitution is another example.   

Secondly, the act of voluntarily entering a contract does not open the door to then being able to void the contract.  Actually, its quite the opposite.   Its when we involuntarily enter a contract, such as having a gun to our head, that a contract can be deemed voidable.  That we enter it voluntarily means that we voluntarily agree to be bound to the terms of the agreement.   

Thirdly, remind me never to loan you money or rent you an apartment.

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## bwlibertyman

> Thirdly, remind me never to loan you money or rent you an apartment.


I think you're forgetting a major difference in these contracts.  The constitution didn't state anything about state seceding except if you follow the 10 amendment.  Most contracts, to my knowledge, have a clause that states something along the lines of "if you fail to do this, then bla bla bla will happen".

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## bwlibertyman

> That might be a part of our difference here.  I am arguing history as it happened, not political philosophy. In history it is relevant to understand the evolution of events.  The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union did not recognize any power of the right of secession nor was any power recognized prior to that.  It was not a power to be retained as it did not exist in any compact or laws.  The natural right of rebellion was what was referred to in the DOI.   (we rebelled against England -no one thought we seceded)  The Constitution built on this in "forming a more perfect Union".


My point is that our laws changed when we accepted the constitution. It doesn't matter that under the old law we wanted a perpetual union. We are under a new law now that under the 10th amendment, allows us to do whatever we want if it isn't already stated.

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## bwlibertyman

> 1) Lincoln thought,as did all whites, that the negro race was inferior to the white race.  Furthermore, prior to the war, he did not see how they could peacefully co-exist with the white race in society, as did few whites think.   But he did not think that meant they should be enslaved.   Lincoln was always anti-slavery.  2) Lincoln recognized, and spoke about it repeatedly during debates, that the presidency had no constitutional power to interfere with slavery *in the states where it existed*.  That is not an indication that Lincoln nor the Republican Party was not anti-slavery.   3) "losing the war so lets pull at heartstrings of abolitionists?   What are you talking about?


If lincoln thought that blacks should go back to Africa why would he change his mind and say well let's just free them and let them coexist with me even though I think my race is superior?

If lincoln didn't think he had any constitutional power to free the slaves why would he all of the sudden change his mind and do so?

I'm talking about the fact that the North had not won the war going into the 2nd or 3rd year of fighting.  The public opinion was starting to change.  Lincoln needed something to get public opinion back on his side.  The abolitionists were a "loud minority" that could help him do just that, and as we saw it worked.

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## burt

> I think you're forgetting a major difference in these contracts.  The constitution didn't state anything about state seceding except if you follow the 10 amendment.  Most contracts, to my knowledge, have a clause that states something along the lines of "if you fail to do this, then bla bla bla will happen".


And in your world of contracts, do just you get to decide, all by yourself, whether or not the other party has breached the terms of the contract?   Once again, if that is the case, then you never had a contract.   Why did you bother?  In your world, contracts can be voided by any party for any reason at any time without appeal to judgement.   Some world.

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## burt

> My point is that our laws changed when we accepted the constitution. It doesn't matter that under the old law we wanted a perpetual union. We are under a new law now that under the 10th amendment, allows us to do whatever we want if it isn't already stated.


You think the founders intended to craft a constitution that is like one of your contracts - entirely non-binding.   You misunderstand the 10th Amendment and the concept of "powers"..

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## acptulsa

Harper's Ferry was about slavery.  Bloody Kansas was about slavery.

Come on.  Get real.  If it weren't for slavery, would the war have happened at all?  Doesn't that count for anything toward the bottom line?  Seriously.

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## burt

> If lincoln thought that blacks should go back to Africa why would he change his mind and say well let's just free them and let them coexist with me even though I think my race is superior?


You really haven't tried very hard to understand the issues of the time, have you.   This last question/statement of yours is so loosely rationed that....well, I won't waste my time on it. 




> If lincoln didn't think he had any constitutional power to free the slaves why would he all of the sudden change his mind and do so?


If you paid attention to what I wrote you would notice I included in bold print that he believed he had no constitutional power to interfere with slavery in the states where it then existed.   The EP was issued as a war power act to free slaves in areas that were in rebellion.   He did have, as the supreme court later affirmed, the constitutional power to do that.

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## burt

> Harper's Ferry was about slavery.  Bloody Kansas was about slavery.
> 
> Come on.  Get real.  If it weren't for slavery, would the war have happened at all?  Doesn't that count for anything toward the bottom line?  Seriously.


Those two issues are the tip of the iceberg.

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## acptulsa

> Those two issues are the tip of the iceberg.


Those aren't two issues.  Learn your history.  Not only were they about the same thing, they were instigated by the same man.  Google John Brown before you wax authoritative on me.

And it was the tip of the iceberg that ripped the gash in the _Titanic's_ hull.

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## burt

> Those aren't two issues.  Learn your history.  Not only were they about the same thing, they were instigated by the same man.  Google John Brown before you wax authoritative on me.
> 
> And it was the tip of the iceberg that ripped the gash in the _Titanic's_ hull.


Bleeding Kansas was not instigated by John Brown.  His attack at Pottawatomie was a response to previous attacks against Free Soilers.  Learn your own history.

....and yes, slavery ripped  the gash in the Titanic's hull.

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## Mini-Me

burt, I have to say:  You have performed some of the most successful thread necromancy that I've ever seen.  You took a four year old thread and more than doubled its length. 

These discussions are always interesting to read, even though I tend to think both sides overstate their point to "pick a side."  There are a lot of identity politics going on here IMO.  (I tend to think slavery was the biggest reason for secession, but the ensuing war itself had little to do with slavery and a lot to do with federal supremacy and domination.  If Lincoln and the slavocrats had all killed each other off in a bar fight, we all would have probably been better off. )




> I would just ask this.   If people move into a territory owned by a nation, later have enough population to apply for statehood, get granted statehood and agree to its terms, and then decide they want out, do they get to take the territory with them?


I do want to address something though, because your wording here illustrates an assumption you have which is diametrically opposed to liberty, limited government, and the basic idea that the government powers derive from the consent of the governed.  You talk about territory "owned" by a nation:  Do you believe the government of a nation rightfully owns all of the land within the nation?  Political jurisdiction is one thing, but ownership is a much stronger and far more dangerous term...and believing the government owns all of the land within its borders has some very disturbing implications.  (It's incompatible with individual ownership, but it's quite compatible with every form of tyranny known to man.)

Did you misspeak, or do you actually believe that we all are and should be serfs on the government's land?  How did the government rightfully acquire all of this land?  Furthermore, even if the states owned the territory within their borders - a dangerous belief - there is nothing in the Constitution ceding that ownership to the federal government anyway.  Only "bought" property could possibly count as property owned by the federal government in particular, and even that is a stretch (for the same reason that it's a stretch that the states ever owned the property within their borders):  The US government paid good money in the Louisianna purchase, and that was enough for the French to cede a claim of jurisdiction, but ownership?  The French government didn't exactly homestead all of that land in the first place.  There's not a whole lot of land that any government has genuinely homesteaded, really.

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## burt

> A precursor for a War Between the States came in 1832, when South Carolina called a convention to nullify tariff acts of 1828 and 1832, referred to as the "Tariffs of Abominations."


It would have been refreshing had Walter William's included the fact that the "abominations" in the 1828 tariff act were actually the products of a political scheme by John Calhoun and his Jackson supporters that didn't go as planned.  The severely high tariffs included on raw wool were calculated to keep the New England states from supporting it so that they would be blamed for the bill's defeat.  Things didn't go as planned, so, who else than Calhoun headed the charge for nullification.      




> Plus, a northern-dominated Congress enacted laws similar to Britains Navigation Acts to protect northern shipping interests.


I believe the navigation laws were passed in 1817 in response to the War of 1812.  They did not protect "northern" shipping interests, they protected American shipping interests.   There was nothing keeping the South from engaging in the coasting trade or international shipping.  In fact, if the South was the great supplier of international exports (they were) as well as the great consumer of foreign imports (they were not) then southern dominance of shipping from southern ports is what we should have expected to see.

As a matter of national interest, I would think it was a good thing to not have your ports full of, and your shipping industry dominated by British shipping.

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## burt

> I do want to address something though, because your wording here illustrates an assumption you have which is diametrically opposed to liberty, limited government, and the basic idea that the government powers derive from the consent of the governed.  You talk about territory "owned" by a nation:  Do you believe the government of a nation rightfully owns all of the land within the nation?


i was exploring this in an historical context of ante-bellum America.   I think the status of federal territory was regarded that it "belongs" to the nation as a whole, in that the national government is the only entity that gets to exercise what were thought of as benefits of ownership, i.e. use, disposal of, sales, etc..   However, when Joe Blow bought (or was given)100 acres of Lousiana territory, its still remained part of Louisiana territory, not the sovereign nation of Joe Blow.  When Joe Blow and his neighbors applied for statehood, they did not do so as sovereign nations of Joe Blow and his neighbors.  On being accepted, they voluntarily agreed to abide by the Constitution as a state of the US .  My point I was exploring is, should Joe Blow and his neighbors then the next week decide to secede, should they be able to "take Louisiana with them?"    Did the US grant statehood to the residents of "its" territory with the understanding that now its future as part of the US was *less* secure?    Did the citizens of the US have a vested interest in who controlled the Mississippi?   




> Political jurisdiction is one thing, but ownership is a much stronger and far more dangerous term...and believing the government owns all of the land within its borders has some very disturbing implications.  (It's incompatible with individual ownership, but it's quite compatible with every form of tyranny known to man.)


As I have already written, I am discussing historical events and Walter William's account of them, not political philosophy.  I think in this case, libertarian philosophy has unfortunately colored William's account, to say the least.




> Did you misspeak, or do you actually believe that we all are and should be serfs on the government's land?


I don't think that is at all what I indicated I believe.  I believe that ownership of property is the basis of all rights, beginning with the ownership of your own life.

----------


## bwlibertyman

> And in your world of contracts, do just you get to decide, all by yourself, whether or not the other party has breached the terms of the contract?   Once again, if that is the case, then you never had a contract.   Why did you bother?  In your world, contracts can be voided by any party for any reason at any time without appeal to judgement.   Some world.


No, in this world, the one we currently live in, clauses are put into the contract onto how and when a party can leave.  I can't think of a clause like that in the constitution.

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## heavenlyboy34

> No, in this world, the one we currently live in, clauses are put into the contract onto how and when a party can leave.  I can't think of a clause like that in the constitution.


 It's not.  To find the legal/moral backing for this, look to the Declaration of Independence.  This document takes precedence over the Constitution. (because social contract theory is purely fiction) 




> When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.


...


> whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive to these ends,* it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government*, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.


"If there                be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its                republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety                with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left                free to combat it." -from Jefferson's inaugural address

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## Aratus

did you know that robert redford's post civil war "indie" history docudrama
 with kevin kline has earned back less than half its noble budget of 25 million?
few of the unwash'd masses are into dry and topical courtroom dramas that 
speak to why we have writs of habeas corpus or even military & civilian courts.

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## burt

> No, in this world, the one we currently live in, clauses are put into the contract onto how and when a party can leave.  I can't think of a clause like that in the constitution.


,,,and the point you avoid is that you apparently think that one party, by itself, can declare a contract void without any independent judgement.   That, once again, makes a contract worthless.   Would you please address that point?

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## burt

> It's not.  To find the legal/moral backing for this, look to the Declaration of Independence.  This document takes precedence over the Constitution. (because social contract theory is purely fiction)


  The DOI takes precedence over the Constitution?  Really? 

...




> "If there                be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its                republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety                with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left                free to combat it."


Do you think Jefferson here is advocating the right of disunion?

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## bwlibertyman

The point I'm making is that the constitution does not have a clause talking about voiding the contract.  Specifically the 10th amendment says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."  Since the constitution doesn't say anything about secession or voiding the contract commonly referred to as the constitution the states do in fact have the power to secede.

When I said "if you voluntarily enter into a contract you should be able to voluntarily leave" there was the assumption that the contract didn't explicitly say anything about voiding said contract.

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## heavenlyboy34

> The DOI takes precedence over the Constitution?  Really? 
> 
> ...


As a matter of political philosophy upon which everything else is based, yes.  In the sense of a legal precedent set up by power-hungry politicians, no.  To the extent later documents (such as the Constitution) are at odds with the principles set forth in the DoI, they are invalid, and we as individuals have the natural right to resist such tyranny.




> Do you think Jefferson here is advocating the right of disunion?


He was.  In fact, when the issue of secession came up during his presidency, he wished the secessionists well (instead of trying to force them into the union as the tyrant Lincoln did later).

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## burt

> The point I'm making is that the constitution does not have a clause talking about voiding the contract.  Specifically the 10th amendment says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."  Since the constitution doesn't say anything about secession or voiding the contract commonly referred to as the constitution the states do in fact have the power to secede.


If this seems tedious, I just want to remind you that it was you who introduced the contract comparison. 
So...once again, you think as long as a contract doesn't have a clause about voiding the contract, then the default nature is that one party alone can void the contract at will for any reason and that will be the end of it, no questions asked.  I suspect you might concede how disastrous that type of exchange would be in all affairs - non-binding contracts that are meaningless the minute they are signed.  They are not binding, either party can extinguish them at will.  No appeal to judgement.   Worthless, useless non-agreements. 

but...you think the 10th amendment gave gave the states just that power to make their agreements useless.  That was the intentions of the founders.   Why again was there any debate over ratification since it came with a 30 day trial period that was to last forever.   What do you think about Madison answering Hamilton that ratification was en toto and forever?

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## burt

> As a matter of political philosophy upon which everything else is based, yes.  In the sense of a legal precedent set up by power-hungry politicians, no.  To the extent later documents (such as the Constitution) are at odds with the principles set forth in the DoI, they are invalid, and we as individuals have the natural right to resist such tyranny.


The following is the grand total of anything that could be called principles in the DOI:  

_We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness._There it is.  A couple of lines more are redundant and the rest merely a list of grievances.  That's not very specific.  

Exactly who is it that decides when "later documents are at odds with the principles set forth in the DOI" and therefore has the right to null and void those laws?  Is it an individual act?  




> He was.


I think in fact that when you read the passage in context you will see that he wasn't.   The "any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or change its republican form" are the "error of opinion" he is referring to that "may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."  That is hardly an advocacy for secession.


> In fact, when the issue of secession came up during his presidency, he wished the secessionists well (instead of trying to force them into the union as the tyrant Lincoln did later).


Could you tell me your source for this, please?  Sounds like something from DiLorenzo.

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## heavenlyboy34

> The following is the grand total of anything that could be called principles in the DOI:  
> _We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness._There it is.  A couple of lines more are redundant and the rest merely a list of grievances.  That's not very specific.


Incorrect.  See:
_When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people  to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,  and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal  station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a  decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should  declare the causes which impel them to the separation._
...
--_That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these  ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to  institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and  organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to  effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that  Governments long established should not be changed for light and  transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that  mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to  right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.  But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the  same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism,  it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and  to provide new Guards for their future security._

This makes very clear the principle that when a government ceases to serve the people, the people have the right to alter or abolish it.

ETA: this is from Jefferson's inaugural address:

"If there be any  among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its  republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety  with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left to  combat it."

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## Cutlerzzz

> Seriously.   Delegates were chosen to represent the People who then met in ratifying conventions.   The state governments had no involvement in the process.  If specified in amendments, state governments can ratify constitutional amendments if they meet specifically for that purpose, but the constitution was only ratified in convention by delegates.  They were organized by state, but it was not state legislatures that ratified.  The fact is that the Constitution was a compact between "We the People" and not "We the States."


Yes. The people of each individual state.

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## heavenlyboy34

> Yes. The people of each individual state.


 Incorrect.  In fact, at the Virginia ratifying convention, Patrick Henry said, "That this is a consolidated Government is demonstrably clear, and the danger of such a Government, is, to my mind, very striking. I have the highest veneration of those Gentlemen,--but, Sir, give me leave to demand, what right had they to say, _We, the People_. *My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious solicitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask who authorised them to speak the language of, We, the People, instead of We, the States?* States are the characteristics, and the soul of a confederation. If the States be not the agents of this compact, it must be one great consolidated National Government of the people of all the States."

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## burt

> Prudence, indeed, will dictate that  Governments long established should not be changed for light and  transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that  mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to  right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.


I did not include this because it is not a principle.  


> But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the  same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism,  it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and  to provide new Guards for their future security.[/I]


 And this is redundant.  Its principle was already stated in the third sentence.....you know, "the right of the people to alter or abolish it" 




> This makes very clear the principle that when a government ceases to serve the people, the people have the right to alter or abolish it.


Is this a right found in law (secession) or an extralegal natural right (revolution)?




> ETA: this is from Jefferson's inaugural address:
> 
> "If there be any  among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its  republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety  with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left to  combat it."


I am aware of where this is from.  I suggested you read it in context since you seem to think Jefferson is advocating the ability to dissolve the Union with it.   What I asked was if you would tell me the source of this statement you made:  *"In fact, when the issue of secession came up during his presidency, he wished the secessionists well (instead of trying to force them into the union as the tyrant Lincoln did later)."*   Have a source for this?

----------


## heavenlyboy34

> I am aware of where this is from.  I suggested you read it in context since you seem to think Jefferson is advocating the ability to dissolve the Union with it.   What I asked was if you would tell me the source of this statement you made:  *"In fact, when the issue of secession came up during his presidency, he wished the secessionists well (instead of trying to force them into the union as the tyrant Lincoln did later)."*   Have a source for this?


 I didn't suggest that Jefferson advocated that seceding states could dissolve the union. EVER.  

The Jefferson quote I refer to is in Jefferson's farewell address (posted previously).  If you don't believe me, look up that speech for yourself.

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## burt

> I didn't suggest that Jefferson advocated that seceding states could dissolve the union. EVER.


  "If there be any among us who would wish to *dissolve this Union* or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left to combat it."   Jefferson




> The Jefferson quote I refer to is in Jefferson's farewell address (posted previously).  If you don't believe me, look up that speech for yourself.


_"In fact, when the issue of secession came up during his presidency, he wished the secessionists well (instead of trying to force them into the union as the tyrant Lincoln did later)._
The above statement you posted is what I have been asking you for a source.   It is not from Jefferson's farewell speech.

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## heavenlyboy34

> "If there be any among us who would wish to *dissolve this Union* or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left to combat it."   Jefferson
> 
> 
> _"In fact, when the issue of secession came up during his presidency, he wished the secessionists well (instead of trying to force them into the union as the tyrant Lincoln did later)._*
> The above statement you posted is what I have been asking you for a source.   It is not from Jefferson's farewell speech*.


 That's because I didn't quote him (except for the underlined above)-I wrote a narrative summary.  If you want a quote, you'll have to read the speech.  BTW, I should have said inaugural speech instead of farewell speech (excuse my typo).  It's here- http://www.princeton.edu/~tjpapers/inaugural/inrevdraft.html

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## burt

> That's because I didn't quote him (except for the underlined above)-I wrote a narrative summary.  If you want a quote, you'll have to read the speech.  BTW, I should have said inaugural speech instead of farewell speech (excuse my typo).  It's here- http://www.princeton.edu/~tjpapers/inaugural/inrevdraft.html


Forget the quote you used from Jefferson's inaugural speech.  I know where it is from....I suggested to you that you read it in context.   I had asked if you thought Jefferson was advocating secession with it and you answered yes.   He was not.  You have embraced a quote that has undoubtedly been supplied to you by DiLorenzo which at first glance looks like it might fit your purpose.   It does not.   I suggest again....read it carefully in context of the inaugural speech.

But once again.....for about the fourth time.....the statement you made about Jefferson, during his presidency wishing secessionists well....*what is your source for this*?  It sounds to me like something out of the Lew Rockwell/Tom DiLorenzo revision factory.

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## acptulsa

> Bleeding Kansas was not instigated by John Brown.  His attack at Pottawatomie was a response to previous attacks against Free Soilers.  Learn your own history.
> 
> ....and yes, slavery ripped  the gash in the Titanic's hull.


Fail.

You're intelligent enough to address an analogy.  Do it.

If slavery wasn't the issue it was so very much the catalyst that the war wouldn't have started but for the abolitionist movement.  Address this or duck it.

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## heavenlyboy34

> Forget the quote you used from Jefferson's inaugural speech.  I know where it is from....I suggested to you that you read it in context.   I had asked if you thought Jefferson was advocating secession with it and you answered yes.   He was not.  You have embraced a quote that has undoubtedly been supplied to you by DiLorenzo which at first glance looks like it might fit your purpose.   It does not.   I suggest again....read it carefully in context of the inaugural speech.
> 
> But once again.....for about the fourth time.....the statement you made about Jefferson, during his presidency wishing secessionists well....*what is your source for this*?  It sounds to me like something out of the Lew Rockwell/Tom DiLorenzo revision factory.


I already gave you my source, and I'm not repeating myself.  (I am not repeating anyone-I came to these conclusions myself just by reading Jefferson)  If you aren't asking me for the source I mentioned, what are you asking?  Even in context, the quote I gave you stands.  It means what I say it means.  How much more context to you want?

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## burt

> Fail.
> 
> You're intelligent enough to address an analogy.  Do it.


I'm not interested in addressing an analogy with the Titanic.




> If slavery wasn't the issue it was so very much the catalyst that the war wouldn't have started but for the abolitionist movement.  Address this or duck it.


I have been very much claiming that slavery WAS the issue that caused secession and the zeal for war.   Either I am confused about what you are asking, or you have me confused with someone else.

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## burt

> I already gave you my source, and I'm not repeating myself.


Okay.  You say the following statement you made (your "narrative summary") -  _"In fact, when the issue of secession came up during his presidency, he wished the secessionists well (instead of trying to force them into the union as the tyrant Lincoln did later)._is not from DiLorenzo, but is what you concluded from Jefferson's 1st inaugural speech.   That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  Can you explain to me how Jefferson could have been speaking of an *"issue of secession"* that "*came up during his presidency"*  where he *"wished the secessionists well"*......how did he comment on that in an inaugural address that was given at the very start of his presidency? 

I'm thinking it came from places like this:

The Official, Politically-Correct Cause of the 'Civil War'
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

"Indeed, when Jefferson was asked what would happen if New England seceded, he said in a letter that New Englanders, like all other Americans "would all be our children" and he would wish them all well."    http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo206.html


Tom DiLorenzo on Secession: 
' As Thomas Jefferson said late in life, if the country becomes several different republics, they will all be our children. He meant that they would all still be Americans, and he wished them all well.'    http://dumpdc.wordpress.com/2010/05/...-on-secession/


As an example of why DiLorenzo is considered a joke by honest Civil War historians, I offer this:    
_"It should not be forgotten that Fort Sumter was, after all, a customs house where federal authorities collected tariffs and fees that interfered with southern commerce." 
Thomas J DiLorenzo_
.....completely false.

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## Aratus

http://wn.com/Background_of_the_Reco...on_Period_clip someone compiled several videos

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## burt

An excerpt from an 1863 speech by Richard Cobden, the "Apostle of Free Trade"

"...But I will tell you candidly, that if it was not for one cause, I should consider as hopeless and useless the attempt to subjugate the Southern States; and I will tell the parties upon whose views I have been commenting, that it is the object and purpose which they have that has rendered success by the Secessionists absolutely impossible. Indeed, if the moral and intellectual faculties of this country had not been misled upon that question, systematically misled, they would have been unanimous and of one opinion. We were told in the House of Commons by one, whom it was almost incredible to behold and think of saying sowho was once the great champion of democracy and of the rights and privileges of the unsophisticated millions,we heard him sayI heard him say myselfthat this civil war was originated because the South wished to establish Free-trade principles, and the North would not allow it. I have travelledand it is for this that I am now going to mention, that I touch upon the subject at allI travelled in the United States in 1859, the year before the fatal shot was fired at Fort Sumter, which has made such terrible reverberations since. I travelled in the United StatesI visited Washington during the session of the Congress, and wherever I go, and whenever I travel abroad, whether it be in France, America, Austria, or Russia, I at once become the centre of all those who form and who avow strong convictions and purposes in reference to Free-trade principles. Well, I confess to you what I confessed to my friends when I returned, that I felt disappointed, when I was at Washington in the spring of 1859, that there was so little interest felt on the Free-trade question. There was no party formed, no public agitation; there was no discussion whatever upon the subject of Free Trade and protection. The political field was wholly occupied by one question, and that question was Slavery."
http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBo.../cbdSPP38.html

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## burt

Richard Cobden......cont.

Now, I will mention an illustrative fact, which I have not seen referred to. To my mind, it is conclusive on this subject. In December, 1860, whilst Congress was sitting, and when the country was in the agony of suspense, fearing the impending rupture amongst them, a committee of their body, comprising thirty-three members, being one representative from every State then in the Union,—that committee, called the Committee of Thirty-three, sat from December 11th, 1860, to January 14th, 1861. They were instructed by Congress to inquire into the perilous state of the Union, and try to devise some means by which the catastrophe of a secession could be averted. Here is a report of the proceedings in that committee [holding up a book in his hand]. I am afraid there is not another report in this country. I have reason to know so. There are forty pages. I have read every line. The members from the Southern States, the representatives of the Slave States, were invited by the representatives of the Free States to state candidly and frankly what were the terms they required, in order that they might continue peaceable in the Union; but in every page you see their propositions brought forward, and from beginning to end there is not one syllable said about tariff or taxation. From the beginning to end there is not a grievance alleged but that which was connected with the maintenance of slavery. There were propositions calling on the North to give increased security for the maintenance of that institution; they are invited to extend the area of slavery; to make laws, by which fugitive slaves might be given up; they are pressed to make treaties with foreign Powers, by which foreign Powers might give up fugitive slaves; but, from beginning to end, no grievance is mentioned except connected with slavery,—it is slavery, slavery, slavery, from the beginning to the end. Is it not astonishing, in the face of facts like these, that any one should have the temerity, so little regard to decency and self-respect, as to get up in the House of Commons, and say that secession has been upon a question of Free Trade and Protection?http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBo.../cbdSPP38.html

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## burt

An excerpt from:

Another Court Historian’s False Tariff History

by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

_"The most egregious falsehood spread by Loewen is to say that the tariff that was in existence in 1860 was the 1857 tariff rate, which was in fact the lowest tariff rate of the entire nineteenth century. In his famous Tariff History of the United States economist Frank Taussig called the 1857 tariff the high water mark of free trade during that century. The Big Lie here is that Loewen makes no mention at all of the fact that the notorious Morrill Tariff, which more than doubled the average tariff rate (from 15% to 32.6% initially), was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives during the 1859–60 session of Congress, and was the cornerstone of the Republican Party’s economic policy....... The Morrill Tariff therefore represented a more than doubling of the rate of federal taxation!"_http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo199.html

Throughout 1860, the 1857 tariff rate..... and only the 1857 tariff rate was in effect.   DiLorenzo calls this plain fact a "most egregious falsehood."   There was a tariff *bill* (Morrill) that had passed in the House of Representatives in May of 1860, but does DiLorenzo mean to assert that that makes it law?   Even he must concede that the bill still needed to get through the Democrat controlled Senate and be signed by Buchanan before it could replace the 1857 tariff.  And even he must concede that the South had the votes to kill the bill.  

And what DiLorenzo fails to mention is that the original Morrill tariff, the tariff act of 1861 was not responsible for that rate of 32.6%, or as he claims in other articles, "soon to be 47%."   It went into effect on April 1, 1861, and less than two weeks later, Ft Sumter was attacked.  The only period in which duties were collected under the 1861 Morrill tariff was the 4th quarter of FY 1861.  DiLorenzo relies heavily on Taussig, so lets see what Taussig actually had to say. 

from Frank Taussig - Tariff History of the United States    p. 139

"Hardly had the Morrill tariff act been passed when Fort Sumter was fired on. The Civil War began. The need of additional revenue for carrying on the great struggle was immediately felt; and as early as the extra session of the summer of 1861, additional customs duties were imposed. In the next regular session, in December, 1861, a still further increase of duties was made. From that time till 1865 no session, indeed, hardly a month of any session, passed in which some increase of duties on imports was not made. 
During the four years of the war every resource was strained for carrying on the great struggle."http://mises.org/books/tariff_history_taussig.pdf

Actually, the average rate of duties (ratio of Duties Collected to Dutiable Imports) as listed in the Statistical Abstract found on page 345 of _Tariff History_shows 32.6% as being the rate for FY 1863.  In FY 1861, in which the original Morrill tariff was collected for essentially one quarter, the average rate actually dropped to 18.84% from FY 1860 19.67%.  DiLorenzo, in his writings tries to make the case that the Morrill tariff that had been passed in the House in 1860 months before the election, and then not in the Senate until after the first wave of secession was the main cause of secession.  But it should be evident here that the (Morrill) tariff act of 1861 did not cause the rate increases he writes of.  They were caused by later wartime tariff increases. 

Taussig - Tariff History of the United States   p. 144-145

"Such were the conditions under which the tariff act of 1864 was passed. As in 1862, three causes were at work: in the first place, the urgent need of revenue for the war; in the next, the wish to offset the internal taxes imposed on domestic producers; and finally, the protectionist leanings of those who managed our financial legislation. *These causes made possible a tariff act which in ordinary times would have been summarily rejected.* It raised duties greatly and indiscriminately,—so much so, that the average rate on dutiable commodities, which had been 37.2 per cent. under the act of 1862, became 47.06 per cent. under that of 1864."

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## Aratus

http://millercenter.org/scripps/arch...um/detail/1845

http://www.youtube.com/user/ncvotered#p/u/7/0g4PZU4XNvs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGQeEKeBkZ8

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## burt

Fulton Anderson was commissioned by the State of Mississippi to convince Virginia to join her sister slave states in secession.   Here is a small excerpt from his speech:  

Speech of Fulton Anderson to the Virginia Convention

"This action of the Convention of Mississippi, gentlemen of the Convention, was the inevitable result of the position which she, with other slaveholding States, had already taken, in view of the anticipated result of the recent Presidential election, and must have been foreseen by every intelligent observer of the progress of events.

 As early as the 10th of February, 1860, her Legislature had, with the general approbation of her people, adopted the following resolution:

"Resolved, That the election of a President of the United States by the votes of one section of the Union only, on the ground that there exists an irrepressible conflict between the two sections in reference to their respective systems of labor and with an avowed purpose of hostility to the institution of slavery, as it prevails in the Southern States, and as recognized in the compact of Union, would so threaten a destruction of the ends for which the Constitution was formed, as to justify the slaveholding States in taking council together for their separate protection and safety."

This was the ground taken, gentlemen, not only by Mississippi, but by other slaveholding States, in view of the then threatened purpose, of a party founded upon the idea of unrelenting and eternal hostility to the institution of slavery, to take possession of the power of the Government and use it to our destruction. It cannot, therefore, be pretended that the Northern people did not have ample warning of the disastrous and fatal consequences that would follow the success of that party in the election, and impartial history will emblazon it to future generations, that it was their folly, their recklessness and their ambition, not ours, which shattered into pieces this great confederated Government, and destroyed this great temple of constitutional liberty which their ancestors and ours erected, in the hope that their descendants might together worship beneath its roof as long as time should last.

But, in defiance of the warning thus given and of the evidences accumulated from a thousand other sources, that the Southern people would never submit to the degradation implied in the result of such an election, that sectional party, bounded by a geographical line which excluded it from the possibility of obtaining a single electoral vote in the Southern States, avowing for its sentiment implacable hatred to us, and for its policy the destruction of our institutions, and appealing to Northern prejudice, Northern passion, Northern ambition and Northern hatred of us, for success, thus practically disfranchizing the whole body of the Southern people, proceeded to the nomination of a candidate for the Presidency who, though not the most conspicuous personage in its ranks, was yet the truest representative of its destructive principles."http://civilwarcauses.org/anderson.htm

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## burt

by heavenlyboy34 - post #89 


> *"If there be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.*" -from Jefferson's inaugural address


When I asked you if you thought Jefferson was advocating secession, you answered _"He was."_   After I suggested to you that he indeed wasn't and that you should read it in context, you answered _"Even in context, the quote I gave you stands. It means what I say it means."_

Here is the origin of the statement you quoted from Jefferson as he first wrote it in his first draft - _"I do not believe there is one native citizen in the US. who wishes to dissolve this union. I am confident there are few native citizens who wish to change its republican features."_ In part of his many revisions to that first draft of his inaugural speech, he then revised the sentence which stands as you quoted.   Jefferson did not tinker and revise his speech, however, in order to take a 180 degree turn in his opinions.   If you cannot decipher from his words in the final speech that he is not, in a speech given at the kickoff of his presidency, advocating a right of secession, then his prior sentence in his first draft should make it easier for you.  

But once again, there is no substitute for reading the whole thing in context.  

*"Let us then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind, let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty, and even life itself, are but dreary things. And let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance, as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonising spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others; and should divide opinions as to measures of safety; but every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all republicans: we are all federalists.* If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it. *I know indeed that some honest men fear that a republican government cannot be strong; that this government is not strong enough. But would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm, on the theoretic and visionary fear, that this government, the worlds best hope, may, by possibility, want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe it the only one, where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern."*
http://www.princeton.edu/~tjpapers/i...l/infinal.html

Jefferson was not, in of all things, his first inaugural address, advocating a right of secession - not in the sentence you quoted  - nor anywhere else.   You have been suckered in by the Rockwell/DiLorenzo bull$#@! factory.  That kind of dishonesty on their part gives libertarians a bad name.   And when Ron Paul subscribes to it, it makes him look foolish to all those who credibly study the history of the Civil War.

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## A Son of Liberty

Just popped in to say that I don't care if Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln or any other politicians living or long since dead believe(d) I have a right to not acquiesce to a ruler.  I do.  And no 200 year old piece of paper changes that.

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## burt

> Just popped in to say that I don't care if Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln or any other politicians living or long since dead believe(d) I have a right to not acquiesce to a ruler.  I do.  And no 200 year old piece of paper changes that.


Agreed.  But that is the natural right of rebellion.  It is that right that Jefferson referred to in the DOI.  It is not a _legal_ right of unilateral secession.  To state that it is legal is to claim that it is found in the terms of the Constitution.   It is not.   The Constitution did explicitly include the means to address disputes over legalities, but the South chose instead to go the route of rebellion.   An oligarchy of slaveholders, instead of trying it in the Supreme Court where they held a majority (and always had), chose to test it where most rebellions are tested - on the battlefield.   

As for you personally, you may think that you, and you alone, can decide when you are being forced to "acquiesce to a ruler" and under the powers reserved you under the 10th Amendment,  declare yourself a sovereign nation no longer bound under the terms of any US laws.   Good luck with that.

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## A Son of Liberty

Yes, I alone as a consequence of my God-given rights can decide that I am not required to obey the commands of some person or group of people who through whatever machinations declares themselves to be my ruler.

And yes, I fully understand what those people would do to me, if I did, and acted upon that declaration of sovereignty.  Thus, the inherent immorality of the state.

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## sratiug

The North attacked the South, so Southern reasons for secession have nothing to do with the cause of the war.  Lincoln, the invader, said the invasion had nothing to do with slavery.

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## burt

> Yes, I alone as a consequence of my God-given rights can decide that I am not required to obey the commands of some person or group of people who through whatever machinations declares themselves to be my ruler.


I trust you are not trying to apply this philosophy as being in play by either side during the decades leading up to the Civil War.   I suspect you would not have had anyone's ear.
What do you think of this excerpt of the 'Cornerstone Speech' given by Alex Stephens, the vice-president of the confederacy?  
_"The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew." 

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."_Apparently, if one believes that a god gives rights, he also then believes that the god of the Bible took them away from the negro with the curse of Ham.  Personally, I don't think any god gave me my rights.

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## burt

> The North attacked the South, so Southern reasons for secession have nothing to do with the cause of the war.  Lincoln, the invader, said the invasion had nothing to do with slavery.


Secession had everything to do with the cause of the war, and so thus did its reasons.  
_"But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact."_Alexander Stephens   vice-president of the confederacy

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## heavenlyboy34

> Secession had everything to do with the cause of the war, and so thus did its reasons.


 That's right.  The North invaded to keep the South from leaving.   This is why it is ironic that the war between the states is called a "civil war".  In a true civil war (like the red-white war in Russia), both sides are in conflict about something.  In the War between the States, it was simply the Northerners trying to keep the Confederate states from leaving.

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## A Son of Liberty

> I trust you are not trying to apply this philosophy as being in play by either side during the decades leading up to the Civil War.   I suspect you would not have had anyone's ear.


I observed the discussion about whether or not Jefferson approved of seccession.  I merely made a post to note, as an aside, that my rights as an individual are objective and true whether or not some "authority" agrees.  




> What do you think of this excerpt of the 'Cornerstone Speech' given by Alex Stephens, the vice-president of the confederacy?  
> _"The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew." 
> 
> Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."_


What do I think of it?  I think that it exhibits the startling revelation that, throughout history, man ignores objective truths, manipulates his belief system to accomodate his biases, and that the notion that one or some group of men should be given authority over the rest through whatever ceremonies, procedures, and/or usurpations is the greatest farce of his existence.  

What do you think of it?




> Apparently, if one believes that a god gives rights, he also then believes that the god of the Bible took them away from the negro with the curse of Ham.


Hello, strawman.




> Personally, I don't think any god gave me my rights.


I wouldn't insist that you think otherwise.

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## sratiug

> Secession had everything to do with the cause of the war, and so thus did its reasons.  
> _"But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact."_Alexander Stephens   vice-president of the confederacy


No.  If the war was over secession, it was not over slavery.  The war was fought in large part to keep blacks out of the northern states.  Lincoln said blacks and whites could never live together as equals.  Without the South in the Union, fugitive slave laws could not send escaped slaves back to their owners.  Lincoln was sending blacks to Liberia and South America to get rid of them, he sure as hell didn't want them in Illinois.

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## burt

> No.  If the war was over secession, it was not over slavery.  The war was fought in large part to keep blacks out of the northern states.  Lincoln said blacks and whites could never live together as equals.  Without the South in the Union, fugitive slave laws could not send escaped slaves back to their owners.  Lincoln was sending blacks to Liberia and South America to get rid of them, he sure as hell didn't want them in Illinois.


Well, I must admit, I thought I had heard it all, but you are the first I have heard claim that the war was fought to keep blacks out of the North and to keep the fugitive slave act working (which the northern states hated).  Something tells me you are not interested in any actual history.

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## burt

> That's right.  The North invaded to keep the South from leaving.   This is why it is ironic that the war between the states is called a "civil war".  In a true civil war (like the red-white war in Russia), both sides are in conflict about something.  In the War between the States, it was simply the Northerners trying to keep the Confederate states from leaving.


Well, either the folks on both sides of the war, who regularly referred to it as a civil war, were just not as enlightened as you, or you are misrepresenting their struggle.

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## burt

> Hello, strawman.


  Fair enough.  I was actually referring to text of Stephen's Cornerstone Speech where he repeatedly makes reference to the negro staying put in his god-given place.  One can't read it without being clear of the role that religion played in the southern justification of slavery and the notion that this god intended there to be a superior and inferior race, and the natural condition of the negro was in bondage.

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## heavenlyboy34

> Well, either the folks on both sides of the war, who regularly referred to it as a civil war, were just not as enlightened as you, or you are misrepresenting their struggle.


 It's not a matter of being "enlightened"-it's the proper use of the term.  It's true that some people on both sides used the term "civil war", but that doesn't make it accurate.  People call the invasion of Iraq/Afghanistan a "war", but that's also incorrect-it's an invasion/occupation.  Nice appeal to authority there, btw.

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## burt

> It's not a matter of being "enlightened"-it's the proper use of the term.  It's true that some people on both sides used the term "civil war", but that doesn't make it accurate.  People call the invasion of Iraq/Afghanistan a "war", but that's also incorrect-it's an invasion/occupation.  Nice appeal to authority there, btw.


Its not an appeal to authority.  It merely shows the ridiculousness of you relying on your assessment of the war to decide that they (and it was not just "some") didn't know what kind of war they were fighting.  Its silliness.

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## heavenlyboy34

> Its not an appeal to authority.  It merely shows the ridiculousness of you relying on your assessment of the war to decide that they (and it was not just "some") didn't know what kind of war they were fighting.  Its silliness.


 Incorrect.

James Fearon, a scholar of civil wars at Stanford University,  defines a civil war as "a violent conflict within a country fought by  organized groups that aim to take power at the center or in a region, or  to change government policies".[1] Ann Hironaka further specifies that one side of a civil war is the state.[3]  The intensity at which a civil disturbance becomes a civil war is  contested by academics. Some political scientists define a civil war as  having more than 1000 casualties,[1] while others further specify that at least 100 must come from each side.

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## burt

> Incorrect.
> 
> James Fearon, a scholar of civil wars at Stanford University,  defines a civil war as "a violent conflict within a country fought by  organized groups that aim to take power at the center or in a region, or  to change government policies".[1] Ann Hironaka further specifies that one side of a civil war is the state.[3]  The intensity at which a civil disturbance becomes a civil war is  contested by academics. Some political scientists define a civil war as  having more than 1000 casualties,[1] while others further specify that at least 100 must come from each side.


Hahaha....that's laughable....you had to Wikipedia what the definition of 'civil war' was, and then you cherry picked one of many definitions out of an article that explained a broad array of definitions.   But we are still back to the point that you presume to understand the motivations and conditions of both sides better than the people fighting the Civil War did and have the arrogance to claim they had mis-named the conflict they were in.  Utter silliness.

eta:    and BTW, I'm a little new here, but isn't it considered bad form to paste material from some other source with crediting that source, or at the very least using quotation marks to indicate that you are not plagiarizing?

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## sratiug

> Well, I must admit, I thought I had heard it all, but you are the first I have heard claim that the war was fought to keep blacks out of the North and to keep the fugitive slave act working (which the northern states hated).  Something tells me you are not interested in any actual history.


Were black people allowed by law to move into Illinois when the War of Northern Aggression was instigated by the racist Abraham Lincoln?

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## sratiug

> Well, I must admit, I thought I had heard it all, but you are the first I have heard claim that the war was fought to keep blacks out of the North and to keep the fugitive slave act working (which the northern states hated).  Something tells me you are not interested in any actual history.


Oh, and by the way, Lincoln thought so highly of the fugitive slave act that he personally represented slave owners in court in legally fighting for the return of their slaves.

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## jmdrake

> Secession had everything to do with the cause of the war, and so thus did its reasons.  
> _"But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact."_Alexander Stephens   vice-president of the confederacy


+rep for stating the obvious.  But you will never convince the hardcore neo-confederates.

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## jmdrake

> Well, I must admit, I thought I had heard it all, but you are the first I have heard claim that the war was fought to keep blacks out of the North and to keep the fugitive slave act working (which the northern states hated).  Something tells me you are not interested in any actual history.





> Were black people allowed by law to move into Illinois when the War of Northern Aggression was instigated by the racist Abraham Lincoln?


Actually black people were allowed by law to move into Illinois when the war of southern stupidity was instigated by firing on Ft. Sumpter.  Not all blacks were slaves.

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## heavenlyboy34

> Hahaha....that's laughable....you had to Wikipedia what the definition of 'civil war' was, and then you cherry picked one of many definitions out of an article that explained a broad array of definitions.   But we are still back to the point that you presume to understand the motivations and conditions of both sides better than the people fighting the Civil War did and have the arrogance to claim they had mis-named the conflict they were in.  Utter silliness.
> 
> eta:    and BTW, I'm a little new here, but isn't it considered bad form to paste material from some other source with crediting that source, or at the very least using quotation marks to indicate that you are not plagiarizing?


Actually, the laughable part is that I had to sit and explain it to you and then go find a resource, and you're still wrong.  (I didn't "have to" go to wikipedia, I just went because I was sick of explaining it myself.  There are numerous other sources to quote, I simply didn't have time to go hunting for them) It is bad to paste info without sourcing, but I linked to the source, which is considered crediting the source (on forums, at least).  I never said all the people fighting in that war mis-named it.  Plenty of people at the time called it the war between the states(or something similar), which is a correct name.  It's the historians who I mostly blame for incorrectly using the term "civil war".  Some people then did call it a "civil war" back then, but that's just propaganda-like calling the hostile invasion of mideast nations a "war on terror".

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## heavenlyboy34

> +rep for stating the obvious.  But you will never convince the hardcore* neo-confederates*.


 Ah, that most favorite derrogatory term for people who don't believe the myths surrounding the war put forward by "official" state historians.

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## jmdrake

> If lincoln thought that blacks should go back to Africa why would he change his mind and say well let's just free them and let them coexist with me even though I think my race is superior?


When Lincoln free slaves in D.C. through compensated emancipation they were not forced to go to Africa or anywhere else.  They were given a choice.  I'm not sure why southern apologists and some black radicals have a problem with given people the freedom to choose where they ultimately want to live.  And no politician who said anything other than "blacks are inferior" had a chance to win the Whitehouse back then.  I recently watched a documentary on George Wallace called "Setting the Woods on fire".  The first time Wallace ran he go trounced because he tried to take a middle position on race while his opponent was directly linked to the KKK.  Wallace told a close friend "I lost because I was out n*ggered.  I will never be out n*ggered again."  Sometimes positions have more to do with political expediency than personal belief.  Lincoln may have indeed been a virulent racist.  Or he may have been playing politics just like Wallace.




> If lincoln didn't think he had any constitutional power to free the slaves why would he all of the sudden change his mind and do so?


1) It wasn't "all of a sudden".
2) The emancipation proclamation was based solely on his commander-in-chief power.  Now you may argue that his power didn't extend that far, but it's illogical to ignore the change of constitutional circumstances.
I'm talking about the fact that the North had not won the war going into the 2nd or 3rd year of fighting.  The public opinion was starting to change.  Lincoln needed something to get public opinion back on his side.  The abolitionists were a "loud minority" that could help him do just that, and as we saw it worked.[/QUOTE]

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## jmdrake

> Ah, that most favorite derrogatory term for people who don't believe the myths surrounding the war.   Most commonly used in place of a real argument, such as in this case.


Whether you consider it "derogatory" or not, it's 100% accurate.  This movement represents a new (neo) generation of confederates.  It's really no more derogatory than paleo-conservative.  Or maybe you would prefer the term "paleo-confederate"?  But that wouldn't be accurate because the neo-confederates do not share the same values or philosophy of the original confederates just like the neo-conservatives don't share the same philosophy or values as the paleo-conservatives.  For example I bet you're against the draft right?  But the south instituted a draft before the north did.

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## sratiug

> +rep for stating the obvious.  But you will never convince the hardcore neo-confederates.


Can you name the neo-confederates for us?

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## jmdrake

> 


That's nice.  Lincoln tried compensated emancipation.  He was successfully in Washington D.C. but the idea failed everywhere else.  That said, here's the Ron Paul quote on slavery that you don't want to hear.

http://paul.house.gov/index.php?opti...=297&Itemid=60

_A constitution in and by itself does not guarantee liberty in a republican form of government. Even a perfect constitution with this goal in mind is no better than the moral standards and desires of the people. Although the United States Constitution was by far the best ever written for the protection of liberty, with safeguards against the dangers of a democracy, it too was flawed from the beginning. Instead of guaranteeing liberty equally for all people, the authors themselves yielded to the democratic majority’s demands that they compromise on the issue of slavery. This mistake, plus others along the way, culminated in a Civil War that surely could have been prevented with clearer understanding and a more principled approach to the establishment of a constitutional republic._

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## jmdrake

> Can you name the neo-confederates for us?


It's one of those "If the shoe fits wear it" things.  In other words, name yourself.  It's funny that modern people who support the confederacy don't want to be called modern people who support the confederacy.  Would you rather I call you a racist?  I don't think you're a racist but if you prefer that label I'll use it.  How about I just call you misguided and uninformed because you thought there were laws keeping black people from moving to Illinois before the civil war?

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## sratiug

> Actually black people were allowed by law to move into Illinois when the war of southern stupidity was instigated by firing on Ft. Sumpter.  Not all blacks were slaves.


Maybe you can correct this wikipedia page then, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_C...ited_States%29which says blacks were not allowed to migrate into Illinois under their law or their constitution of 1848.  And Fort Sumter is in the South.

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## jmdrake

> Maybe you can correct this wikipedia page then, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_C...ited_States%29which says blacks were not allowed to migrate into Illinois under their law or their constitution of 1848.  And Fort Sumter is in the South.


Maybe you missed this part of that Wikipedia page.  *[citation needed]*  Regardless, the assertion that the civil war was about Illinois immigration laws is laughably stupid.

Anyway, I looked up the Illinois black codes of 1853.  Here's what it said about negro immigration.

http://www.lib.niu.edu/1996/iht329602.html
_Legislators in the first General Assembly passed measures designed to discourage African-Americans from coming to Illinois. Blacks were denied suffrage, and other laws deprived them of most rights accorded free white men. African-Americans were prohibited from immigrating without a certificate of freedom._

As I said before, *not all blacks were slaves in 1853*.  So once again you don't know what you're talking about.  Don't count on Wikipedia to give you all the facts.

Edit: I've corrected the Wikipedia page to better reflect verified facts.  It now says:

_The Illinois Black Code of 1853 barred blacks from immigrated to the state unless they had a certificate of freedom. [4]_

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## heavenlyboy34

> That's nice.  Lincoln tried compensated emancipation.  He was successfully in Washington D.C. but the idea failed everywhere else.  That said, here's the Ron Paul quote on slavery that you don't want to hear.
> 
> http://paul.house.gov/index.php?opti...=297&Itemid=60
> 
> _A constitution in and by itself does not guarantee liberty in a republican form of government. Even a perfect constitution with this goal in mind is no better than the moral standards and desires of the people. Although the United States Constitution was by far the best ever written for the protection of liberty, with safeguards against the dangers of a democracy, it too was flawed from the beginning. Instead of guaranteeing liberty equally for all people, the authors themselves yielded to the democratic majority’s demands that they compromise on the issue of slavery. This mistake, plus others along the way, culminated in a Civil War that surely could have been prevented with clearer understanding and a more principled approach to the establishment of a constitutional republic._


 Actually, I'm very aware of that quote.  It's actually one that I would use to defend my position.  I'm surprised you would bring that up because it works against your line of argumentation.  Even considering any interpretation of the above RP quote, he was still correct that the civil war was unnecessary(he brought this up in the 2008 debates)-and that every nation in the world ended slavery without a (so-called) "civil war".

The article you quoted was from 2003, the video I posted was from 2008.  Perhaps, like any other person, RP changed his mind on an issue in 5 years' time?

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## heavenlyboy34

> It's one of those "If the shoe fits wear it" things.  In other words, name yourself.  It's funny that modern people who support the confederacy don't want to be called modern people who support the confederacy.  Would you rather I call you a racist?  I don't think you're a racist but if you prefer that label I'll use it.  How about I just call you misguided and uninformed because you thought there were laws keeping black people from moving to Illinois before the civil war?


 re-read the thread.  None of us "support" the confederacy except for a few things, like secession and states' rights.  It was a tyrannical regime, like the Northern one.

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## jmdrake

> Actually, I'm very aware of that quote.  It's actually one that I would use to defend my position.  I'm surprised you would bring that up because it works against your line of argumentation.  Even considering any interpretation of the above RP quote, he was still correct that the civil war was unnecessary(he brought this up in the 2008 debates)-and that every nation in the world ended slavery without a (so-called) "civil war".
> 
> The article you quoted was from 2003, the video I posted was from 2008.  Perhaps, like any other person, RP changed his mind on an issue in 5 years' time?


No it doesn't support your position.  Or maybe you've misstated your position or you don't understand mine.  My position is that slavery was a primary factor in the civil war.  This entire thread *from it's title and article in the OP* is about denying the truth that slavery was a "but for" cause of the civil war.  Walter Williams misrepresented the fact regarding the Morrill Tariff which was not passed until after secession *and could not have passed but for secession*.

Ron Paul clearly says that slavery was a "but for" cause of the civil war.  It wasn't the only cause, but without it session, and the civil war, would not have happened.  As for the video you posted, you keep ignoring the fact that Lincoln attempted compensated emancipation with the border states but failed.  It's unlikely a president Ron Paul would have had any better luck.  The key difference between what happened in other countries and U.S. slavery is that in other countries there weren't "slave states" and "free states".  All of the provinces own slaves so it wasn't a regional issue.

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## jmdrake

> re-read the thread.  None of us "support" the confederacy except for a few things, like secession and states' rights.  It was a tyrannical regime, like the Northern one.


I have read the thread.  And I haven't seen anyone besides me consistently point out the tyranny of the south.  In fact others seem to get offended when I point that out.  If you pointed that out fine, but you're in a minority.

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## sratiug

> Maybe you missed this part of that Wikipedia page.  *[citation needed]*  Regardless, the assertion that the civil war was about Illinois immigration laws is laughably stupid.
> 
> Anyway, I looked up the Illinois black codes of 1853.  Here's what it said about negro immigration.
> 
> http://www.lib.niu.edu/1996/iht329602.html
> _Legislators in the first General Assembly passed measures designed to discourage African-Americans from coming to Illinois. Blacks were denied suffrage, and other laws deprived them of most rights accorded free white men. African-Americans were prohibited from immigrating without a certificate of freedom._
> 
> As I said before, *not all blacks were slaves in 1853*.  So once again you don't know what you're talking about.  Don't count on Wikipedia to give you all the facts.
> 
> ...


From the Illinois Constitution of 1848.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Illino...tution_of_1848


> Article XIV.
> *The general assembly shall*, at its first session under the amended constitution, *pass such laws as will effectually prohibit free persons of color from immigrating to and settling in this state;and to effectually prevent the owners of slaves from bringing them into this state for the purpose of setting them free.*

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## jmdrake

> From the Illinois Constitution of 1848.
> http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Illino...tution_of_1848


And when you read the actual law that was passed it didn't block free persons of color who had proof of their freedom from immigrating to Illinois.  So your point is?

Oh and I'm still waiting for you to try your mistaken factoid into this little gem.




> The war was fought in large part to keep blacks out of the northern states.


What twisted bit of logic brought you to the conclusion that the north felt it needed to fight a war to keep blacks in the south?  I mean come up.  That's just stupid.  The best case scenario of any war is that people in the affected areas are *more* likely to migrate.  And if the north in general wanted to *fight a war* to keep blacks out, why would northerners after the war head south to recruit blacks to migrate north to work in northern factories?

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## burt

> Oh, and by the way, Lincoln thought so highly of the fugitive slave act that he personally represented slave owners in court in legally fighting for the return of their slaves.


Lincoln only had a part in representing slaveholders in two cases in the 1840s IIRC, which even you should realize came before the fugitive slave act.   It is a puzzlement to everyone why he agreed to participate in those cases, and he was well known to be anti-slavery in opinion.  If you studied the politics of the 1850s from credible sources that were not, as you are, more interested in assassinating Lincoln's character than being balanced and reasonable, you would be aware that, although Lincoln did not envision blacks and whites living harmoniously next to each other as full citizens, he did not think that men should be held as slave labor.   That is clear to all who don't have their head shoved up somewhere.

.....and the bit about the North fighting a war to keep the fugitive slave act in effect is insane.   Not only have you gleaned your unimpressive "knowledge" from bull$#@! sources, you have managed to yourself screw the bull$#@! all up.   

Please.....defend your claims.

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## burt

> Were black people allowed by law to move into Illinois when the War of Northern Aggression was instigated by the racist Abraham Lincoln?


You mean the _War Where the Yankees Kicked the Rebel's Asses_?   It is incorrect to think of Illinois as a purely "northern" state that was anti-slavery.   The southern portion of the state was nestled in between two slave states, and slavery was allowed in salt mines there until about 1850, IIRC.  It was populated by southerners.  Sentiment in southern Illinois was sympathetic to the slave states.

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## burt

> ...Even considering any interpretation of the above RP quote, he was still correct that the civil war was unnecessary(he brought this up in the 2008 debates)-and that every nation in the world ended slavery without a (so-called) "civil war".


Can't have your cake and eat it too.   Can't claim in one breath that the Civil War was not fought to free slaves, and then in the next breath claim that only the US fought a civil war to free the slaves, while everyone else did it peacefully.   

The fact is that you cannot pretend to know what might have happened to end slavery in other countries had half of any of those countries rebelled, led by an oligarchy of slaveowners, and declared they would carve out their own country for the purpose of preserving their slavery.  You can't know how long that slavery would have endured (had they been successful) nor the bloodshed that would have followed (had they not).  This business of comparing the situation here to any other country is as silly as your insisting they called their war by the wrong name.

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## heavenlyboy34

> Can't have your cake and eat it too.   Can't claim in one breath that the Civil War was not fought to free slaves, and then in the next breath claim that only the US fought a civil war to free the slaves, while everyone else did it peacefully.


 I didn't "have my cake and eat it too".  Slavery and the civil war are different issues.  RP was simply responding to the common misconception (which you also have).  Were you around during those debates?  If not, go back and watch them for full context.

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## burt

> Actually, the laughable part is that I had to sit and explain it to you and then go find a resource, and you're still wrong.  (I didn't "have to" go to wikipedia, I just went because I was sick of explaining it myself.  There are numerous other sources to quote, I simply didn't have time to go hunting for them) It is bad to paste info without sourcing, but I linked to the source, which is considered crediting the source (on forums, at least).  I never said all the people fighting in that war mis-named it.  Plenty of people at the time called it the war between the states(or something similar), which is a correct name.  It's the historians who I mostly blame for incorrectly using the term "civil war".  Some people then did call it a "civil war" back then, but that's just propaganda-like calling the hostile invasion of mideast nations a "war on terror".


You have a great talent for avoiding the point.  Even the Wikipedia page that you provided gave many definitions for what constituted a civil war.  You chose one of them.  (first you accuse me of an appeal to authority for asserting that most people on both sides in the 1850-60s referred to it a a civil war, and then you rely on the definition of a lone prof. for your support....sheesh!)  What you can't get around is that you do not get to choose your brand of definition of what a civil war is in order to apply it to a conflict 150 years ago.  Particularly when you insist on have such a lopsided view of events.

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## burt

> I didn't "have my cake and eat it too".  Slavery and the civil war are different issues.  RP was simply responding to the common misconception (which you also have).  Were you around during those debates?  If not, go back and watch them for full context.


Tim Russert on Meet The Nation:  "According to Paul, Abe Lincoln should never have gone to war - there were better ways of getting rid of slavery."   If you want to claim that the war was not about slavery, then the only thing left is that the US got rid of slavery in the most peaceful way imaginable - the 13th Amendment.  Ron Paul could not be more pleased than that.

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## libertybrewcity

Did Walter Williams endorse Paul in 08?

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## heavenlyboy34

> You have a great talent for avoiding the point.  Even the Wikipedia page that you provided gave many definitions for what constituted a civil war.  You chose one of them.  (first you accuse me of an appeal to authority for asserting that most people on both sides in the 1850-60s referred to it a a civil war, and then you rely on the definition of a lone prof. for your support....sheesh!)  *What you can't get around is that you do not get to choose your brand of definition of what a civil war is in order to apply it to a conflict 150 years ago.*  Particularly when you insist on have such a lopsided view of events.


Exactly right.  That is why it is incorrect to call it a "civil war". (My view of events is not "lopsided".  Everyone has different opinions of the events and what they mean, but the basic facts are universal-such as the fact that it was not a "civil war", unless you redefine the word to fit an agenda.)

----------


## jmdrake

> I didn't "have my cake and eat it too".  Slavery and the civil war are different issues.  RP was simply responding to the common misconception (which you also have).  Were you around during those debates?  If not, go back and watch them for full context.


LOL.  You must love the rubber bands because you are *really* stretching it.  Ron Paul wasn't responding to any "misconception" about the civil war.  In fact the context of the speech wasn't about the civil war at all.  He just threw in the fact that slavery contributed to the civil war in order to make a point about a flaw in the constitution.  And in the clip you played from 2008 Ron Paul did *not* say that slavery didn't contribute to the civil war.  He was merely making the point (erroneous IMO considering that Lincoln tried it) that the slaves could have been freed without the civil war.  But that's not the same as saying slavery was not a but for cause for the civil war.  We could have gotten OBL without invading Afghanistan.  But that doesn't mean the 9/11 attacks weren't a but for cause for that war either.

Even the "Southern Avenger" admits that slavery was one of the causes for the civil war.

See:

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## sratiug

> And when you read the actual law that was passed it didn't block free persons of color who had proof of their freedom from immigrating to Illinois.  So your point is?
> 
> Oh and I'm still waiting for you to try your mistaken factoid into this little gem.
> 
> 
> 
> What twisted bit of logic brought you to the conclusion that the north felt it needed to fight a war to keep blacks in the south?  I mean come up.  That's just stupid.  The best case scenario of any war is that people in the affected areas are *more* likely to migrate.  And if the north in general wanted to *fight a war* to keep blacks out, why would northerners after the war head south to recruit blacks to migrate north to work in northern factories?


Did you post the actual law?  The link you posted said this...



> But in 1853, under the leadership of southern Illinois Democrat John A. Logan, the General Assembly adopted the draconian "Black Law" of 1853. For the most part, the law simply brought together in one place several existing laws. *Under this law, no black from another state could remain within the Illinois borders for more than ten days*. *Beyond ten days and he or she was subject to arrest, confinement in jail, and a $50 fine and removal from the state. If unable to pay the fine, the law directed the sheriff to auction the offending African-American to the bidder willing to pay the costs and the tine and to work the "guilty" party the fewest number of days.* If the convicted man or woman did not leave within ten days after completing the required service, the process resumed, but the fine was increased $50 for each additional infraction. Although most newspapers opposed the measure, there is but little doubt that it reflected the views of much of the state's population.

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## sratiug

> Lincoln only had a part in representing slaveholders in two cases in the 1840s IIRC, which even you should realize came before the fugitive slave act.   It is a puzzlement to everyone why he agreed to participate in those cases, and he was well known to be anti-slavery in opinion.  If you studied the politics of the 1850s from credible sources that were not, as you are, more interested in assassinating Lincoln's character than being balanced and reasonable, you would be aware that, although Lincoln did not envision blacks and whites living harmoniously next to each other as full citizens, he did not think that men should be held as slave labor.   That is clear to all who don't have their head shoved up somewhere.
> 
> .....and the bit about the North fighting a war to keep the fugitive slave act in effect is insane.   Not only have you gleaned your unimpressive "knowledge" from bull$#@! sources, you have managed to yourself screw the bull$#@! all up.   
> 
> Please.....defend your claims.


Thanks for the correction.  Lincoln didn't even need the fugitive slave laws to defend the rights of slaveholders.  I'm glad we can agree that Lincoln was in fact not an abolitionist.

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## sratiug

> You mean the _War Where the Yankees Kicked the Rebel's Asses_?   It is incorrect to think of Illinois as a purely "northern" state that was anti-slavery.   The southern portion of the state was nestled in between two slave states, and slavery was allowed in salt mines there until about 1850, IIRC.  It was populated by southerners.  Sentiment in southern Illinois was sympathetic to the slave states.


Slavery in Union states was fine with Lincoln.  Slavery continued in the Union during the war in  the Union slave states and Union generals used slaves during their campaigns - which makes any claim of slavery being the cause of the war fall to dust.

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## Aratus

wasn't the wording of the E.P in 1863 due to the political clout of tennessee's military governor?
indirectly slavery is the issue that politically polarized our politics prior to the war. technically
the way fort sumter was fired on and/or supplied lit the fuse for the almost inevitable war...

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## showpan

The nullification movement was always at the heart of the conflict, I agree that it was not a civil war because a civil war is fought for control and power. The South did not want to control the North, it was the North who wanted to control the Southern economy while opening up new markets in the Western territories. The North would have never won if it weren't for the great land giveaway that brought in over 1 Million immigrants to fight for them. 

The nullification movement began many years before and Georgia and South Carolina  had already threatened to secede in the early 1800's. There was a growing rift between President Jackson and John C. Calhoun of S. Carolina and the two friends had parted ways and became opponents. Fights had broke out in congress and heated debates were common. The 1830 Webster-Hayne debate centered around the South Carolina nullification crisis of the late 1820s.
States rights were always the issue and anything else, slavery and tariffs, were only secondary issues used to fan the flames that were already raging for over 50 years before the War even started.

The issue of whether or not a state had the right to nullify a federal law was not a new issue in 1832. Over thirty years earlier, the Kentucky Resolution was secretly authored by Thomas Jefferson in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts. Along with the Virginia Resolution, which was written by James Madison, the Kentucky Resolution argued that state legislatures had the right to nullify Federal statutes. This version of the Kentucky Resolution is from the Thomas Jefferson Papers at the Library of Congress. The text in the first column is from the rough draft, and that in the second from a fair copy. The facsimile is the text actually adopted by the Kentucky legislature and sent to the other state legislatures
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collecti...ferson_papers/

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## burt

> Thanks for the correction.  Lincoln didn't even need the fugitive slave laws to defend the rights of slaveholders.  I'm glad we can agree that Lincoln was in fact not an abolitionist.


You obviously read just what you want, make up what you want, and discard all the rest.   Not a good recipe for understanding anything.

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## burt

> The nullification movement was always at the heart of the conflict....


Whose nullification?  The only people bitching about nullification in the 1850s were southerners, and they were bitching about northern states nullifying fugitive slave laws with their Personal Liberty Laws.  So, do we hear any libertarian hoorahs here for the northern states who fought against federal power to capture negroes and take them South into slavery?  Understand, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 *obligated citizens under threat of fine and imprisonment* to aid in the capture of alleged runaways, *denied the accused* runaway any testimony on his behalf in front of a federal judge, and then *paid that judge $5 if he found the man to be free, but $10 if he found him to be a runaway*.  Where is the libertarian outrage for that type of federal scam.    


> I agree that it was not a civil war because a civil war is fought for control and power. The South did not want to control the North, it was the North who wanted to control the Southern economy while opening up new markets in the Western territories.


Please elaborate.




> The North would never have won if it weren't for the great land giveaway that brought in over 1 Million immigrants to fight for them.


Really?   How do you figure?  In 1860 the states that would make up the confederacy had a population of around 5.5 million whites and the states remaining in the Union had around 21 million whites.   If you figure in free blacks, then it swings the advantage even further to the Union.   That's a spread of quite a lot more than 1 million, not to mention the great  manufacturing and agricultural capabilities of the North, and their ability to distribute it. 




> The 1830 Webster-Hayne debate centered around the South Carolina nullification crisis of the late 1820s.


The think the "nullification' threats of Calhoun is little more than a politician flapping his jaws in the wind.   We can read all the "We are not going to collect your tariff." claims that can be shoveled out, but the fact of the matter is, states don't collect the tariff anyway.  They are assessed at a US Custom-house by US Customs inspectors and the duties are collected by Customs agents for the US Treasury Department.   Just exactly where does South Carolina think they had a role in any of this.   To stop collections would mean the governor of a state would have to take a militia down to a US Custom-house and arrest the Customs employees.   That oughta go over well.    Is it the view here of people in favor of nullification that, for instance, a state that doesn't agree with federal immigration laws should be able to take a militia and arrest all the Customs and Border Patrol agents and open the border crossings in their state to unfettered travel? 



> States rights were always the issue and anything else, slavery and tariffs, were only secondary issues used to fan the flames that were already raging for over 50 years before the War even started.


Could you please give some specific example of "states rights" that were being violated and how they were "states rights"?   For instance, I don't consider a Georgia planter not being able to move his slavery operation to Oregon as an infringement against the state of Georgia, anymore than I would consider a casino operator from Las Vegas not being able to open a casino in New Hampshire as a "state's rights" violation against Nevada.  

Thank you

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## burt

> "....I agree that it was not a civil war because a civil war is fought for control and power. The South did not want to control the North, it was the North who wanted to control the Southern economy while opening up new markets in the Western territories...."


If you would like to rely on Prof. James D Fearon's definition of what a civil war is, as does heavenlyboy34, here is a more complete version from a 2006 Washington Post article of his: 

 1) Civil war refers to a violent conflict between organized groups within a country that are fighting over control of the government,* one side's separatist goals*, or some divisive government policy.
http://fsi.stanford.edu/news/civil_w...tics_20060410/

[emphasis mine]

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## sratiug

> Maybe you missed this part of that Wikipedia page.  *[citation needed]*  Regardless, the assertion that the civil war was about Illinois immigration laws is laughably stupid.
> 
> Anyway, I looked up the Illinois black codes of 1853.  Here's what it said about negro immigration.
> 
> http://www.lib.niu.edu/1996/iht329602.html
> _Legislators in the first General Assembly passed measures designed to discourage African-Americans from coming to Illinois. Blacks were denied suffrage, and other laws deprived them of most rights accorded free white men. African-Americans were prohibited from immigrating without a certificate of freedom._
> 
> As I said before, *not all blacks were slaves in 1853*.  So once again you don't know what you're talking about.  Don't count on Wikipedia to give you all the facts.
> 
> ...


I trust you have re-corrected the wiki entry to show that free blacks were not allowed in Illinois?

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## sratiug

> You obviously read just what you want, make up what you want, and discard all the rest.   Not a good recipe for understanding anything.


Are you seriously claiming that Lincoln was an abolitionist?

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## burt

> ...technically the way fort sumter was fired on and/or supplied lit the fuse for the almost inevitable war...


I think its important to realize that the original wave of secession of the deep South was a colossal failure.  Out of 15 slave states, only seven seceded.    They threw a great party and no one of importance showed up. 

The Confederacy was delivered into this world stillborn. 

And what did these states of the confederacy have in common (besides slavery) in the spring of 1860?   They hardly had any population. The number of citizens in just Pennsylvania alone was 200,000 more than the entire confederacy put together.   No single state in the confederacy even had as many citizens as little ol' North Carolina.  There were more citizens living in the deep woods and rocky coastline of Maine than there were in any state of the early confederacy.   It was of paramount importance that the more populous border slave states join the gulf states, otherwise it was predicted by some that the next round of conventions in the South would be on the subject of rejoining the Union.  Without at least Virginia and Tennessee, the confederacy was doomed.

From my perspective, that is why Sumter was attacked before the resupply got there.  It was not because Charleston needed defending against Anderson.  It was because they needed the "victory" of reducing the fort, drawing blood, and bringing the conflict to a boiling point.   There are those who think Lincoln "maneuvered" Davis into firing, but I see it more as challenging him with several options.   Lincoln had to reverse the policy of the Buchanan administration that stood by with folded arms while the confederates seized federal properties, arsenals, mints, ships, and took Union soldiers prisoner in Texas. 

Had Davis been smarter about it, they would have attacked Sumter while Buchanan was still in office so that it would have been a done deal when Lincoln arrived.

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## burt

> Are you seriously claiming that Lincoln was an abolitionist?


You obviously read just what you want, make up what you want, and discard all the rest. Not a good recipe for understanding anything.

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## sratiug

> You obviously read just what you want, make up what you want, and discard all the rest. Not a good recipe for understanding anything.


So you admit Abe Lincoln was not an abolitionist?

----------


## burt

> So you admit Abe Lincoln was not an abolitionist?


Did Lincoln want to abolish slavery?  Yes.  
Was he in favor of slavery?  Not in any way that I am aware of.  
Did he think there was any constitutional power for the president to interfere with slavery where it then existed?  No.
Did he support a plan to re-establish blacks in Africa?   Yes , at first.   He later rejected that plan.   It was I believe in great part to his seeing how well black soldiers fought for the Union.
Was Lincoln a racist?   Perhaps by today's standards, but not by 1860s standards.  If you want to truly get a handle on the views of Abe Lincoln, I suggest you read a good biography (try David Herbert Donald's) or two about him along with the Lincoln-Douglas debates and the Cooper Union address for starters.   If you just want to ignorantly slander him, then stick with works by Lew Rockwell, Dilorenzo, Kennedy Bros. etc..  

Meanwhile, I realize that you will just read what you want, make up what you want and discard the rest.

Abraham Lincoln, Speech fragment concerning the abolition of slavery, c. July 1858. The Gilder Lehrman Collection.
_"I have never professed an indifference to the honors of official station; and were I to do so now, I should only make myself ridiculous. Yet I have never failed  do not now fail  to remember that in the republican cause there is a higher aim than that of mere office. I have not allowed myself to forget that the abolition of the Slave-trade by Great Brittain, was agitated a hundred years before it was a final success; that the measure had its open fire-eating opponents; its stealthy dont care opponents; its dollar and cent opponents; its inferior race opponents; its negro equality opponents; and its religion and good order opponents; that all these opponents got offices, and their adversaries got none. But I have also remembered that though they blazed, like tallow-candles for a century, at last they flickered in the socket, died out, stank in the dark for a brief season, and were remembered no more, even by the smell. School boys know that Wilbe[r]force, and Granville Sharpe, helped that cause forward; but who can now name a single man who labored to retard it? Remembering these things I can not but regard it as possible that the higher object of this contest may not be completely attained within the term of my natural life. But I can not doubt either that it will come in due time. Even in this view, I am proud, in my passing speck of time, to contribute an humble mite to that glorious consummation, which my own poor eyes may [struck: never] not last to see."_

http://www.gilderlehrman.org/collect.../slide05a.html

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## sratiug

> Did Lincoln want to abolish slavery?  Yes.  
> Was he in favor of slavery?  Not in any way that I am aware of.  
> Did he think there was any constitutional power for the president to interfere with slavery where it then existed?  No.
> Did he support a plan to re-establish blacks in Africa?   Yes , at first.   He later rejected that plan.   It was I believe in great part to his seeing how well black soldiers fought for the Union.
> Was Lincoln a racist?   Perhaps by today's standards, but not by 1860s standards.  If you want to truly get a handle on the views of Abe Lincoln, I suggest you read a good biography (try David Herbert Donald's) or two about him along with the Lincoln-Douglas debates and the Cooper Union address for starters.   If you just want to ignorantly slander him, then stick with works by Lew Rockwell, Dilorenzo, Kennedy Bros. etc..  
> 
> Meanwhile, I realize that you will just read what you want, make up what you want and discard the rest.
> 
> Abraham Lincoln, Speech fragment concerning the abolition of slavery, c. July 1858. The Gilder Lehrman Collection.
> ...


I suppose you are admitting Lincoln was not an abolitionist, since you don't deny this fact?  He fought in court to maintain slavery.  He pushed a constitutional amendment to protect slavery.  And he invaded the South instead of freeing the slaves in the slave states that remained in his Union.

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## heavenlyboy34

> Did Lincoln want to abolish slavery?  Yes.  
> Was he in favor of slavery?  Not in any way that I am aware of.  
> Did he think there was any constitutional power for the president to interfere with slavery where it then existed?  No.
> Did he support a plan to re-establish blacks in Africa?   Yes , at first.   He later rejected that plan.   It was I believe in great part to his seeing how well black soldiers fought for the Union.
> Was Lincoln a racist?   Perhaps by today's standards, but not by 1860s standards.  If you want to truly get a handle on the views of Abe Lincoln, I suggest you read a good biography (try David Herbert Donald's) or two about him along with the Lincoln-Douglas debates and the Cooper Union address for starters.   If you just want to ignorantly slander him, then stick with works by Lew Rockwell, Dilorenzo, Kennedy Bros. etc..  
> 
> Meanwhile, I realize that you will just read what you want, make up what you want and discard the rest.
> 
> Abraham Lincoln, Speech fragment concerning the abolition of slavery, c. July 1858. The Gilder Lehrman Collection._"I have never professed an indifference to the honors of official station; and were I to do so now, I should only make myself ridiculous. Yet I have never failed – do not now fail – to remember that in the republican cause there is a higher aim than that of mere office. I have not allowed myself to forget that the abolition of the Slave-trade by Great Brittain, was agitated a hundred years before it was a final success; that the measure had it’s open fire-eating opponents; it’s stealthy “don’t care” opponents; it’s dollar and cent opponents; it’s inferior race opponents; its negro equality opponents; and its religion and good order opponents; that all these opponents got offices, and their adversaries got none. But I have also remembered that though they blazed, like tallow-candles for a century, at last they flickered in the socket, died out, stank in the dark for a brief season, and were remembered no more, even by the smell. School –boys know that Wilbe[r]force, and Granville Sharpe, helped that cause forward; but who can now name a single man who labored to retard it? Remembering these things I can not but regard it as possible that the higher object of this contest may not be completely attained within the term of my natural life. But I can not doubt either that it will come in due time. Even in this view, I am proud, in my passing speck of time, to contribute an humble mite to that glorious consummation, which my own poor eyes may [struck: never] not last to see."_http://www.gilderlehrman.org/collect.../slide05a.html


 While we're quoting Lincoln, let's remember this one that you keep trying to ignore:

"*My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery.* *If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.*"

~Excerpt from a letter from Lincoln to Horace Greely
Now there's and inconvenient truth for you, burt.

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## burt

> I suppose you are admitting Lincoln was not an abolitionist, since you don't deny this fact?


I have never claimed Lincoln was an abolitionist in the sense of a Garrison or Brown, although he was one in the sense that he favored the institution's ultimate extinction.  You seem incapable of understanding that difference.  


> He fought in court to maintain slavery.


 No, he represented a client in court in respect of the existing law.  You seem incapable of understanding that difference, too.  


> He pushed a constitutional amendment to protect slavery.


 Really?  Please provide a credible source that he "pushed" the Corwin Amendment.  And you do realize that the Corwin Amendment merely offered to protect constitutionally what was already considered protected constitutionally...and it was no more than a last ditch effort the stall secession....and it was all done with by the time Lincoln took office.  


> And he invaded the South instead of freeing the slaves in the slave states that remained in his Union.


Have you consistently missed all the times that you have read where Lincoln acknowledged that he had no constitutional right to interfere with slavery where it existed???    There's something about you.....oh, yea, you read what you want, make up what you want and discard the rest.

----------


## burt

> While we're quoting Lincoln, let's remember this one that you keep trying to ignore:
> 
> "*My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery.* *If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.*"
> 
> ~Excerpt from a letter from Lincoln to Horace Greely
> Now there's and inconvenient truth for you, burt.


It would do you so much good if you would include things in their context.

from Lincoln's letter to Horace Greeley:   "

_As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views._I will translate the parts for you that you seem not to understand.   Lincoln's *paramount* object is to save the Union.  His *paramount* object is not to save or destroy slavery. If it were it would be more important than saving the union.   Nobody ever makes that claim.  Do you understand?  He makes it very clear that what is *most important* to him in this struggle is saving the Union.   However, that does not mean that he therefore was not in favor of seeing the ultimate end to slavery.  He did not want to see it protected in the territories.   He did not want to see it protected in the free states.   It should have been obvious to all that by this time in the war, the cancer that brought this all on had to be eliminated, or it would simply keep infecting the corpse.

----------


## sratiug

> I have never claimed Lincoln was an abolitionist in the sense of a Garrison or Brown, although he was one in the sense that he favored the institution's ultimate extinction.  You seem incapable of understanding that difference.   No, he represented a client in court in respect of the existing law.  You seem incapable of understanding that difference, too.   Really?  Please provide a credible source that he "pushed" the Corwin Amendment.  And you do realize that the Corwin Amendment merely offered to protect constitutionally what was already considered protected constitutionally...and it was no more than a last ditch effort the stall secession....and it was all done with by the time Lincoln took office.  Have you consistently missed all the times that you have read where Lincoln acknowledged that he had no constitutional right to interfere with slavery where it existed???    There's something about you.....oh, yea, you read what you want, make up what you want and discard the rest.


So we can agree that Lincoln was pretty much a Jefferson Davis type abolitionist?

Lincoln fought in court to maintain slavery.

And he certainly had no objection to the Corwin Amendment.




> "As soon as he was elected, but before his inauguration, *Lincoln 'instructed Seward to introduce [the amendment] in the Senate Committee of Thirteen without indicating they issued from Springfield*.'  In addition, Lincoln instructed Seward to get through Congress a law that would make the various 'personal liberty laws' that existed in some Northern states illegal. (Such state laws nullified the Federal Fugitive Slave Act, which required Northerners to apprehend runaway slaves)" (p. 54, quoting Dorothy Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals).

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## Aratus

isn't lincoln encouraging ALL fACTIONS in the 1860s with promices, keeping in mind 
that sec' seward was an abolitionist but andrew johnson was only a unionist?  i feel 
he kept his options flexible + open, and antietum gave him an openning in 1862/63!
GOTO doris kearns goodwin. monsieur seward almost won the GOP nomination in 1860 
until middle of the road Honest Abe began to surge. sec' seward was an unvarnish'd
totally pragmatic abolitionist who eventually became a key administration team player.

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## burt

> So we can agree that Lincoln was pretty much a Jefferson Davis type abolitionist?
> 
> Lincoln fought in court to maintain slavery.


You read what you want, make up what you want, and discard the rest.




> And he certainly had no objection to the Corwin Amendment.


$#@!, you are obtuse!   The Corwin Amendment accomplished nothing that Lincoln hadn't already stated his beliefs about - that there was no authority to interfere with slavery where it existed.  If it had been successful in keeping some border states from seceding then it had value.  As a personal aside, even had it been ratified, I don't think it would have been irrevocable.  I don't think any amendment can be made irrevocable.




> "As soon as he was elected, but before his inauguration, Lincoln 'instructed Seward to introduce [the amendment] in the Senate Committee of Thirteen without indicating they issued from Springfield.'  In addition, Lincoln instructed Seward to get through Congress a law that would make the various 'personal liberty laws' that existed in some Northern states illegal. (Such state laws nullified the Federal Fugitive Slave Act, which required Northerners to apprehend runaway slaves)" (p. 54, quoting Dorothy Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals).


It would be helpful if you would either link or give a source when you paste something.

I think you will find that this is just more incorrect rubbish from DiLorenzo and that he is not accurately quoting Doris Kearns Goodwin (big surprise there - I don't know if he accurately quotes anyone).  Lincoln did not instruct Seward to introduce the Corwin Amendment.  He had several other proposals, but they did not include the amendment.

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## Cutlerzzz

> I have never claimed Lincoln was an abolitionist in the sense of a Garrison or Brown, although he was one in the sense that he favored the institution's ultimate extinction.  You seem incapable of understanding that difference.   No, he represented a client in court in respect of the existing law.  You seem incapable of understanding that difference, too.   Really?  Please provide a credible source that he "pushed" the Corwin Amendment.  And you do realize that the Corwin Amendment merely offered to protect constitutionally what was already considered protected constitutionally...and it was no more than a last ditch effort the stall secession....and it was all done with by the time Lincoln took office.  Have you consistently missed all the times that you have read where Lincoln acknowledged that he had no constitutional right to interfere with slavery where it existed???    There's something about you.....oh, yea, you read what you want, make up what you want and discard the rest.


Is anyone taking him seriously at this point? His argument goes "Lincoln might have been willing to defend slave owners in court, may have been willing to make money off of it, may have been willing to make it illegal for the federal government to interfere with slavery, may have married a woman from a slave owning family, may not have considered it as important secession, might have supported the Fugitive Slave Act, and might not have thought it was the governments place to say that no one can own a slave, but he was against it in principle". He has 54 posts, all in this thread. He's trolling. Nobody would make a serious argument like that.

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## heavenlyboy34

> Is anyone taking him seriously at this point?


 No (at least, I hope not)




> His argument goes "Lincoln might have been willing to defend slave owners in court, may have been willing to make money off of it, may have been willing to make it illegal for the federal government to interfere with slavery, may have married a woman from a slave owning family, may not have considered it as important secession, might have supported the Fugitive Slave Act, and might not have thought it was the governments place to say that no one can own a slave, but he was against it in principle". He has 54 posts, all in this thread. He's trolling. Nobody would make a serious argument like that.


Correct

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## YumYum

I will say that I think that a change came over Lincoln during the War. He started off a puppet for his base, and as the war progressed and he knew the North was winning, he cut the puppet strings and ended up taking a bullet in the head. I think he might have had some sort of remorse; knowing that he could have prevented the war and the loss of so much life, and he really started thinking of himself as the "great emancipator" and  the"great healer" for the war-ravaged nation. His new found visions for America seems to border on disillusionment, but given that he suffered with horrible episodes of depression, and had a crazy wife, it would be safe to say that he was probably mentally ill.

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