# Happy Birthday, Jefferson Davis



## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 2, 2012)

Jefferson Davis was born June 3, 1808, and he was the first and only President of the Confederate States of America. He believed in peace, free trade, and the American idea of self-government.

"All we ask is to be let alone." - Jefferson Davis


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## RockyRacoon (Jun 3, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Jefferson Davis was born June 3, 1808, and he was the first and only President of the Confederate States of America. He believed in peace, free trade, and the American idea of self-government.
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> "All we ask is to be let alone." - Jefferson Davis



And slavery!


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## uscitizen (Jun 3, 2012)

Both Davis and Lincoln were born in KY.
The only state to have both a north and south state capitol at the same time.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 4, 2012)

RockyRacoon said:


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Yes, the Confederacy practiced slavery, as did the Union. Neither side has the moral high ground on that issue.


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## NLT (Jun 4, 2012)

*Call the boys...Yeee haw its JD's Birfday*


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## RockyRacoon (Jun 4, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


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Are you serious?! The union, led by Abraham Lincoln and 350,000 dead union soldiers don't have the moral high ground on the issue of slavery?  I realize that not everyone in the north was a saint that went off to war to end the suffering of the black man but that is what it was all about and I think the USA can most assuredly claim the moral high ground over the traitors from the CSA.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 4, 2012)

RockyRacoon said:


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Delaware, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland, and Missouri were all slave states that remained in the Union. If it was all about the "suffering of the black man," then why didn't Lincoln end slavery in those states?


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## Polk (Jun 4, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


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In the middle of a war where they could defect to the other side... hmm, I do wonder why.


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## KevinWestern (Jun 4, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Jefferson Davis was born June 3, 1808, and he was the first and only President of the Confederate States of America. He believed in peace, free trade, and the American idea of self-government.
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> "All we ask is to be let alone." - Jefferson Davis




But....

Wasn't he a traitor? And specifically, a traitor who seceded from the United States of America because he and others like him did not want to give up their "right" to have have millions of Africans work unlimited hours, for free, for their own personal profit? 

The secession led to a war that cost 600,000+ United States lives...

Why should I wish him happy birthday exactly?


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 4, 2012)

Polk said:


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Or maybe we could look at what Lincoln actually said instead.

"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, and I have no inclination to do so."

Lincoln only "freed" the slaves because he wanted to undermine the Confederacy. The border states weren't in the Confederacy, thus no reason to free their slaves.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 4, 2012)

KevinWestern said:


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He argued against secession as a Senator from Mississippi, but believed that the right to secession was natural and constitutional so he went along with his state. As to being a traitor, well, I suppose he was a traitor in the same sense that Samuel Adams or Thomas Jefferson were traitors to King George. As to the war leading to 600,000+ deaths, I suppose you should look at who actually wanted the war. That would be Lincoln, not Davis. Davis wanted to secede peacefully, whereas Lincoln was intent on forcing them back into the Union.


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## Sunni Man (Jun 4, 2012)

Jefferson Davis was following he intent of the Constitution which allowed states to secede from the Union.


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## bayoubill (Jun 4, 2012)

Lincoln was an asshole...

but, after the last 50 years, I'm used to having presidents who are assholes...


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## Polk (Jun 4, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


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I really don't understand this obsession southerners have with trying to claim there was some noble cause by the Civil War. Southerners were afraid Lincoln and the Republicans in Congress were going to end slavery, so they took up arms to protect their "right" to own other human beings like sacks of potatoes. Instead of acknowledging this fact, you try to claim Lincoln was secretly pro-slavery because he didn't say "Yeah, let's go ahead and let these rebels win by giving them a big chunk of additional territory".


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## Polk (Jun 4, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


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The rebels started the conflict by their attack on Fort Sumter.


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## Katzndogz (Jun 4, 2012)

Polk said:


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Of course not!  This has to be the result of the lack of American History taught in our public schools.   When you get an education and can discuss the Civil War with some degree of knowledge come back.  In the meantime, God Bless Jefferson Davis.

I met an honors student from a local high school equally as ignorant.  She said the Hitler was a bad man who hated black people and that's why there was a WWII.

Same thing.


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## Polk (Jun 4, 2012)

Katzndogz said:


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I can discuss the conflict in great detail. The problem is that you and your fellow southern apologists don't want to look like racist kooks, so you come up with moronic arguments for why the war was secretly about something else.


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## Greenbeard (Jun 4, 2012)

KevinWestern said:


> But....
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> Wasn't he a traitor?



Why yes. Yes, he was.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 4, 2012)

Polk said:


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I'm not a southerner, nor do I see any noble cause in the Civil War. All wars, including the Civil War, are simply exercises in mass murder by competing governments. I no more believe the Confederacy was noble and good than I do the Union. My position is merely that the states had and continue to have, though obviously you're free to disagree with me as the Supreme Court does, the right to secede. So with that position in mind, I suppose you could say that I believe the Confederacy was "right." It doesn't matter that some of them seceded in an effort to protect slavery among other reasons, because they have the right to secede regardless of their reason in my view. After all, the colonies practiced slavery and we don't bemoan the fact that they seceded from the British Empire.

As to Lincoln, I don't believe he was "secretly pro-slavery." I believe he was opposed to slavery, but I also believe he was a racist that didn't necessarily care about the slaves at all. He only wanted to stop the spread of slavery into the west so that slaves wouldn't take work away from free white labor. This is also why he wanted to deport all black people out of the U.S. So, like I said, he didn't issue the Emancipation Proclamation out of some noble design to end slavery and end the suffering of black people, but merely to undermine the Confederacy. Europe didn't want to intervene on the side of the Confederacy after Lincoln seemingly made the war about slavery, even though an independent Confederacy would have been in their interests, and it wouldn't have bothered Lincoln had the slaves risen up against the Confederacy to gain the freedom he was offering. If it had been some noble gesture, he would have freed the slaves in the border states and in Confederate cities captured by Union soldiers such as New Orleans. But he didn't, because it wasn't.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 4, 2012)

Polk said:


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Which was provoked by Lincoln.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 4, 2012)

Katzndogz said:


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Polk is actually a valued poster on this board, and very well informed. Disagreements are no cause for rudeness.


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## Katzndogz (Jun 4, 2012)

Polk said:


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The reasons for the Civil War was never a secret.

The top five very unsecret reasons for the civil war.

Top Five Causes of the Civil War


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## Polk (Jun 4, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


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"Provoked" in the sense that I'd be "provoking" you if you broke in to my house and tried to steal my television.


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## Polk (Jun 4, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


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Thank you, that's very nice of you to say. I don't agree with much you have to say, but I always enjoy our discussions.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 4, 2012)

Polk said:


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No, as in provoked as if there were a dispute regarding a television and I simply took it and thumbed my nose at you.


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## Polk (Jun 4, 2012)

Katzndogz said:


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Three of five (The fight between Slave and Non-Slave State Proponents, Growth of the Abolition Movement, The election of Abraham Lincoln) directly relate to slavery, while the other two are really elements of the first one (Economic and social differences between the North and the South), which really isn't even a social difference. You may want to believe that slavery was not the cause of the war, but that requires believing disagreements over tariff rates is enough to spark a war. I'm highly skeptical of that claim, and so were people at the time.


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## Polk (Jun 4, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


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It goes back to fundamentals of property law. Thieves can never give good title.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 4, 2012)

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I don't know about that. Andrew Jackson was nearly ready to go to war with South Carolina over his tariff. Though I think when it comes to tariffs, it was more the south simply being tired of fighting the issue. Tariffs would rise, then they'd go down a little bit in a never ending cycle. They ultimately just decided they'd be better off without the north trying to drag them down with tariffs, especially since Lincoln had promised much higher tariffs during the campaign. Certainly not the only issue that led them to secede, but an important one nonetheless.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 4, 2012)

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Let's put it this way, Lincoln knew what the consequences of attempting to resupply Fort Sumter would be as it had already been attempted, yet he still went ahead with it. Why? He clearly wasn't interested in avoiding war, whereas Davis sent a delegation to Washington to try to purchase all federal property that remained in the Confederacy. Why? Obviously he was interested in avoiding a war.

We obviously disagree about who was in the right, but can we at least agree that these events clearly show Davis trying to avoid a war, whereas Lincoln was, at the least, not interested in avoiding a war?


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## Moonglow (Jun 4, 2012)

wasn't Jeff caught in womens clothes while trying to ecsape?


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## Sallow (Jun 4, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Jefferson Davis was born June 3, 1808, and he was the first and only President of the Confederate States of America. He believed in peace, free trade, and the American idea of self-government.
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> "All we ask is to be let alone." - Jefferson Davis



Davis was engaged in treason and insurrection.

If he really wanted to be "left alone"..he should have left the borders of the United States..found some uninhabited place..and started a new country.

That's not what he did. And he was damned lucky not to be hung.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 4, 2012)

Sallow said:


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The same could then be said of Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the founding fathers. If they didn't want to be under the tyranny of King George they should have left the borders and formed their own country somewhere else.


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## Polk (Jun 4, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


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Why is it that the southerners are never accountable for their own actions? Jackson wasn't "nearly ready to go to war". South Carolina threatened revolt if they didn't get there way.


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## Polk (Jun 4, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


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No, I won't agree to that. The rebels didn't have the right to steal property then trying to whitewash it by offering to pay for what they stole.


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## Polk (Jun 4, 2012)

Sallow said:


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Absolutely.


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## Polk (Jun 4, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


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Personally, I don't feel that argument does much. I think you're right, but I think does more to reflect negatively on the Founding Fathers than it does to boost the status of the rebels.


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## Sunni Man (Jun 4, 2012)

Jefferson Davis was a true patriot who believed in the Constitution as it was written.

Sadly, the American dream as envisioned by the Founding Fathers was forever lost when the Confederates were defeated.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 4, 2012)

Polk said:


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No, they simply nullified the tariff, which meant they weren't going to pay it. They threatened to defend themselves after Jackson threatened to invade, however.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 4, 2012)

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They tried to pay before the incident at Fort Sumter.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 4, 2012)

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That's fine. All I'm trying to point out is the inconsistency. Many people call the Confederates traitors, but then they'll go out and celebrate Independence Day on July 4th. If that's what you think, then you're at least being consistent.


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## geauxtohell (Jun 4, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Jefferson Davis was born June 3, 1808, and he was the first and only President of the Confederate States of America. He believed in peace, free trade, and the American idea of self-government.
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> "All we ask is to be let alone." - Jefferson Davis



Yes he believed in peace.....  After the South fired on Sumter.
He believed in free trade secured by the labor of men and women in chains.
He believed in self governance by white men.

Fuck the south.  Death to traitors.

The loser Davis is lucky that Lncoln was decent.

Jackson would have hung is sorry ass.


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## geauxtohell (Jun 4, 2012)

Katzndogz said:


> The reasons for the Civil War was never a secret.



Speaking of ignorant......


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## geauxtohell (Jun 4, 2012)

Polk said:


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"Cornerstone speech"


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 4, 2012)

geauxtohell said:


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Jefferson Davis's inaugural address.


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## Artevelde (Jun 5, 2012)

KevinWestern said:


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Good post.


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## KevinWestern (Jun 5, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> He argued against secession as a Senator from Mississippi, but believed that the right to secession was natural and constitutional so he went along with his state. As to being a traitor, well, I suppose he was a traitor in the same sense that Samuel Adams or Thomas Jefferson were traitors to King George. As to the war leading to 600,000+ deaths, I suppose you should look at who actually wanted the war. That would be Lincoln, not Davis. Davis wanted to secede peacefully, whereas Lincoln was intent on forcing them back into the Union.




Thanks for the reply. 

I'm no historian, but I'm almost certain that the the South _wouldn&#8217;t_ have seceded from the Union if the Northern states were pro-slavery, and didn&#8217;t present a threat to their &#8220;right&#8221; to work millions of Africans to their deaths on their plantations. I can care less if Lincoln was a racist, or whether or not he had ulterior motives for freeing the slaves; what instead is relevant to me is that he supported the abolition of slavery, plain and simple. 

I don&#8217;t know about you, but I simply can&#8217;t support the South in any way when their *#1 REASON* or leaving the United States was because they wanted to uphold the institution of slavery. Obviously, I can see why it'd be harder for southerners to let go of this disgusting practice, but I don't think they're deserving of any sort of special sympathy. It's slavery, and it's wrong. 

Where do you find justification for supporting the Southern cause?


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## Katzndogz (Jun 5, 2012)

Jefferson Davis was a traitor the same way George Washington was a traitor.   The south lost the war.  Had George Washington lost the war he would have been a traitor too.


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## KevinWestern (Jun 5, 2012)

Katzndogz said:


> Jefferson Davis was a traitor the same way George Washington was a traitor.   The south lost the war.  Had George Washington lost the war he would have been a traitor too.



Obviously. 

But the fact will always remain that the South seceded primarily because they didn&#8217;t want to give up their right to own slaves. If the north was slave-friendly, the Civil War would have not occurred. This core issue is the reason I will always side with the north and refuse to call any of the southern secessionists "heroes". 

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## Katzndogz (Jun 5, 2012)

KevinWestern said:


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The reasons were primarily economic with the mills of the north price fixing the price of cotton and blockading the southern ports so they would not be able to sell to Europe.

Slavery was already on its way out.   Slavery had already died in Europe, England no longer had slaves and didn't fight a war to do bring about the end of slavery.   Lincoln knew this, which is why he said that the southern states could keep slavery but new states applying to the union had to be free states.  

The Emancipation Proclimation did not end slavery.  It was a punishment for states in rebellion.  The loyal border states were still free to have, keep, buy and sell slaves.  States that had already come under Union control were free to have, keep, buy and sell slaves.

Featured Document: The Emancipation Proclamation

President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." 

Despite this expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union military victory. 

At the time, it was already known that slavery was going to end.  It was becoming too expensive to maintain slaves who could be replaced by machinery.  The industrial revolution was bringing about an end to slavery.   The vast plantations had already started freeing slaves and investing in machines.

The freed and abandoned slaves could not survive in the agricultural south and headed north to work in the mills.   Where they promptly came under a different kind of slavery.  The workhouse slavery.   To stop the northward migration of ex-slaves, the North had to impose upon the south a means to keep the slaves there.  Carpetbaggers bought up plantations lost to taxes and invented the concept of sharecropping.   Free men would farm their own land, which they had an chance to buy.   All they had to do was give a share of the crop to the new owner.   A share which guaranteed a life of penury.  Same shit, different master.  The former slaves were now even worse off than ever.  As "free" people, no master would feed them, clothe them, tend to illness or injury.    Bad weather, pests, crop disease didn't matter, the share did not diminish.   The cleverness of the North was brilliant.  They maintained slaves, but called them free and thus had no responsibiliity to them at all.  Slaves went from having some investment value on the block, to being completely worthless.   What's more is that this has generally been accepted as an improvement.

It is a shame that the South did not win.  The whole country would have been better off.  Slavery would have died its natural death in a few years and we would not have had the burden of decades of affirmative action that has only infantilized what was once a proud people.


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## KevinWestern (Jun 5, 2012)

Katzndogz said:


> It is a shame that the South did not win.  The whole country would have been better off.  Slavery would have died its natural death in a few years and we would not have had the burden of decades of affirmative action that has only infantilized what was once a proud people.



First of all, what makes you think that if the south were to win, and slavery were to die off slowly and &#8220;naturally&#8221; over the course of the coming years that the blacks would have been somehow &#8220;better off&#8221;? Personally, I don&#8217;t get where you&#8217;re coming from here. If the south won the war, slavery would have continued on for another 40-50 years perhaps. And you say that it's a shame - essentially - that this didn't happen? What's wrong with you?

I ask you; what good would this *prolongation of slavery have done for the blacks exactly*? 

AND, you claim that affirmative action is what &#8220;infantilized&#8221; a &#8220;once proud people&#8221;? Really Katz? What about the 300+ years of slave trade and rigid social hierarchies put in place that essentially made blacks = sub humans under law; do you think that also might have perhaps _played _into the &#8220;infantilization&#8221; of the Africans? 


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## Katzndogz (Jun 5, 2012)

KevinWestern said:


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I can't educate you.  I would hope that you might be interested enough to educate yourself.  

There is not a country in the world that did not hold slaves.  White slaves, black slaves, brown slaves. Slaves.   Eveyone was both a slave and a slave holder at some point in history.   It was the way anything got done.  Earning a wage, working for pay was a concept very slow in coming.   Every other country, slave holding or enslaved themselves ended slavery when slavery became too impractical to continue.   Peoples who were former slaves matured out of slavery.  Jews are no longer slaves to Egyptians.  The British no longer feel enslaved to the Italians.   Only in the United States have we paid black people to expect support for their lives because at some point their ancestors once slaves.  They never matured as a people.  They are still slaves!  They still need to be taken care of, fed, clothed, housed, medicated.   The only difference today is, no one can put them to work.  We don't have forced labor, yet.   Slavery is not an issue any other place in the world but here.  Mentally, as a class, the Civil War could have ended yesterday.  They are as unable to care for themselves today as they were when the Massa distributed their food.  Now Massa is a welfare case worker.

Had the south won the war, slavery would have died a natural death.   Black people would not have a sense of entitlement or be owed anything.  They'd be like back people everywhere else in the world.  They might have stayed in the South or emigrated north.  Where they weren't exactly welcomed.  There never would have been Jim Crow laws, the KKK would never have been born.  Segregation would have been too cumbersome to continue on its own.  Bull Connor would never have had firehoses to turn on school children.  George Wallace would never have been elected governor.  Martin Luther King would have died as a drunken Baptist peacher at a very old age.  The South would not have been impoverished.  Had the whole of the south not been impoverished, black people could have started to create their own wealth much earlier and liberals would be able to destroy only their own country.


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## Katzndogz (Jun 5, 2012)

KevinWestern said:


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You don't understand one thing.  At the time of the civil war, slavery was already on its way out.    A hundred slaves was necessary to do in one day what the cotton gin could do in a matter of hours.   Once James Watt invented the steam engine one steam driven cotton gin could do in a matter of minutes what a hundred slaves could do in a day.  Day by day the Industrial Revolution was burying the idea of slavery and holding slaves was becoming far too expensive.   The bottom had already fallen out of the slave trade.  They were becoming worthless to sell and too expensive to keep.   Thousands of them were repatriated to Africa to eventually form the nation of Liberia.   Plantation owners were already investing in machinery that didn't have to be fed, didn't get sick and didn't complain.   That was one of the reasons for the Northern Mills to fix prices for southern cotton and prevent the South from selling directly to Europe.    Had slavery and it's attendant expenses not been an already dying institution, there would never have been a Civil War.  The dying end of slavery is what made the Civil War an economic necessity.  Without the responsibility of so many slaves to support, the south was becoming very very rich and a direct threat to the mill owners of the north.    The disaster, the death knell, would have been for the south to use european profits to start building mills of their own.   Follow the north's template, pay the freed slaves to be trained to work in the mills, at less than what it cost to support a slave.  Already, at that time, Europe would not buy goods made, manufactured, by slaves. 

It came down to being all about money.  Which is exactly what history says.  Slavery is a bigger excuse today than it was at the time Lincoln was president.


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## Polk (Jun 5, 2012)

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They were already seizing forts and armories all across the region before Fort Sumter.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 5, 2012)

KevinWestern said:


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Two reasons. For starters, as I've already stated in this thread, there were slave states that remained in the Union. So I suppose I can turn your question around on you: Where do you find justification for supporting the northern cause, given that they also practiced slavery? I give neither the side the moral high ground on this issue, and condemn them both. The second reason is that I believe in the right to self-government as put forth by our Declaration of Independence.

"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 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.*"

Furthermore, I'm of the opinion that if you condemn the Confederates then you must also logically condemn the colonists who seceded from the British Empire. The colonists practiced slavery at the time of their independence, and yet people seem far more willing to forgive them than they are the Confederates. It's hypocrisy, as far as I can tell.

As for what they would have done had things been different, you can only speculate. In reality, the north, generally speaking, was quite content with southern slavery. They didn't want those slaves freed and then emigrating north, which is why some northern states, such as Illinois, had laws against the emigration of blacks into the state. The abolitionists would, of course, have highly favored southern secession, as many had advocated the north seceding from the south. If there was no more political connection between the two regions then the abolitionists would no longer be bound by the the Fugitive Slave clause of the Constitution.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 5, 2012)

Katzndogz said:


> Jefferson Davis was a traitor the same way George Washington was a traitor.   The south lost the war.  Had George Washington lost the war he would have been a traitor too.



You can be right and lose a war, just as you can be wrong and win a war. You're either a traitor or you're not. Winning and losing have nothing to do with it.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 5, 2012)

KevinWestern said:


> Katzndogz said:
> 
> 
> > It is a shame that the South did not win.  The whole country would have been better off.  Slavery would have died its natural death in a few years and we would not have had the burden of decades of affirmative action that has only infantilized what was once a proud people.
> ...



I don't know that I would say that slavery lasting longer than it did would have been good for black people, but if slavery had ended peacefully and naturally then it's possible that the racial strife that marred the south in the post Reconstruction period could have been averted.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 5, 2012)

Polk said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > Polk said:
> ...



Yes, they did. They became more aggressive when it became clear that Lincoln was unwilling to resolve the dispute diplomatically. If he wasn't going to let them buy the federal property, then they decided to seize it. You can disagree with these actions if you want, but you can't deny that they originally tried to handle it peacefully.


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## Polk (Jun 5, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Polk said:
> 
> 
> > Kevin_Kennedy said:
> ...



I can agree that they saw their actions as peaceful, but I don't think there is a peaceful way to demand someone else's property.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 5, 2012)

Polk said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > Polk said:
> ...



Offering to not only pay for that property, but also your fair share of the national debt, is not demanding someone else's property. It's attempting to negotiate for said property. When Lincoln refused to negotiate they did what they felt they had to do, as they weren't going to allow Union soldiers and forts to remain within their borders. Not wanting a foreign government to have a military presence within your borders doesn't seem unreasonable to me.


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## Polk (Jun 5, 2012)

But that all comes back to the idea that they have a legal right to break off in the first place.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 5, 2012)

Polk said:


> But that all comes back to the idea that they have a legal right to break off in the first place.



Correct, and that is obviously my assumption. I doubt we're going to find much common ground there, however.


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## Polk (Jun 5, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Polk said:
> 
> 
> > But that all comes back to the idea that they have a legal right to break off in the first place.
> ...



Of course not, but that's what makes the debate a fun exercise.


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## MuadDib (Jun 6, 2012)

uscitizen said:


> Both Davis and Lincoln were born in KY.
> The only state to have both a north and south state capitol at the same time.



Not really. Kentucky was a Union state. But Frankfort was taken by the Confederates for a brief time and was the only Union state capitol ever occupied by the Confederates.


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## MuadDib (Jun 6, 2012)

KevinWestern said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > He argued against secession as a Senator from Mississippi, but believed that the right to secession was natural and constitutional so he went along with his state. As to being a traitor, well, I suppose he was a traitor in the same sense that Samuel Adams or Thomas Jefferson were traitors to King George. As to the war leading to 600,000+ deaths, I suppose you should look at who actually wanted the war. That would be Lincoln, not Davis. Davis wanted to secede peacefully, whereas Lincoln was intent on forcing them back into the Union.
> ...



Pretty much everything you said there is politically correct, but historically incorrect.

The troubles between North and South were over tariffs, not slavery. By 1860, the South was funding 85-87% of the Federal government's total revenue through tariffs that were increasing their cost of living. Almost 9 out of 10 Southerners owned no slaves at all. 

American agriculture was booming in the mid-1850's as Southern farms were feeding Europe during the Crimean War. That boom slowed dowed down when the war ended in '56. In 1857, the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company had to close its New York office because of embezzlement, which almost caused a run on the banks. That, the economic slowdown,  and the Dred Scott Decision caused an economic depression, the Panic of 1857.

Strangely enough, Congress actually did the right thing that year and lowered the tariff rates, and the economy stabilized and began to recover in two years. Just as the economy was beginning to recover, Congressman Justin Morrill of Vermont proposed the Morrill Tariff, threatening to raise the tariff rates through the roof with the Southern states bearing the brunt of it..

Lincoln campaigned in 1860 in favor of the Morrill Tariff. That was why he did not appear on the ballots in any of the Southern states, not slavery. After his election and before his inauguration, he gave a speech in Philadelphia promising to sign the tariff bill if Congress passed it. They did pass it and President James Buchanan signed it into law as one of his final acts.

Contrary to popular belief, Lincoln was not an abolitionist. He did not consider himself one, nor did the abolitionists consider him an abolitionist. Read his First Inaugural Address.



> 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, and I have no inclination to do so.
> 
> Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them...


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## Sallow (Jun 6, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Sallow said:
> 
> 
> > Kevin_Kennedy said:
> ...



If one were British..that absolutely would be the case.

It also puts the heroism of the founders into perspective as they were really risking their fortunes, reputations, and lives.


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## Sallow (Jun 6, 2012)

MuadDib said:


> KevinWestern said:
> 
> 
> > Kevin_Kennedy said:
> ...



Eyeah..this old chestnut.

No..the troubles between the North and the South were very much about slavery. Aside from the moral implications of the practice, there were numerous slave revolts and the courts were being larded with indefensible cases about the rights of slaves.

Initially Lincoln hadn't thought blacks equal to whites, but thought the institution of slavery was wrong. He had no taste to go to war over it either. That changed..along Lincoln's other opinion, that if the American Blacks were liberated, they would be sent back to Africa.


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## MuadDib (Jun 6, 2012)

Now, you may argue that the South fired the first shot at Fort Sumter and you would be correct. That was exactly what Lincoln wanted them to do.

Charleston was the South's most major port on the Atlantic coast and the garrison at the fort would be able to stop any ships entering or leaving the harbor and charge a tariff. Do you think that it would be a sound policy to allow a foreign nation to have a fort in the harbor of one of your most significant ports?

Lincoln had promised the South in good faith that he would not try to reinforce the garrison at Fort Sumter, that he would only supply the men there with food and essentials, then changed his mind and broke his promise within a matter of days.

Two weeks after the battle, he wrote a letter to Gustavus Fox, his naval commander on that expedition:



> WASHINGTON, May 1st, 1861.
> 
> Capt. G.V. Fox:
> 
> ...



In essence, he was saying, "Our plan worked".

He left the South no choice but to fire the first shot.


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## MuadDib (Jun 6, 2012)

Sallow said:


> MuadDib said:
> 
> 
> > KevinWestern said:
> ...



It's not an old chestnut. It's the truth and was pretty much known by all until the Progressives started rewriting history around 1910. Lincoln didn't start a war to free the slaves; he started it to get the Federal government's revenue back. He is recorded as ranting, "What about my tariff?"

The myth that Lincoln changed his mind about blacks and his ideas about repatriating them back to Africa has been pretty thoroughly debunked. He maintained those ideas right up to the day he died.


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## Sallow (Jun 6, 2012)

MuadDib said:


> Sallow said:
> 
> 
> > MuadDib said:
> ...



First off..Lincoln didn't start the war..neither did the North. Secondly, there are 2 reasons in the US constitution to go to war, invasion..and insurrection. The South was engaged in insurrection and had no moral or legal leg to stand on. There is "no myth" about Lincoln changing his mind about Blacks..that's history. It has not been "debunked". The fact that "Liberia" never really saw an influx of American Blacks, as well as the fact that they remained in the country as well as the fact the Constitution was changed to accomodate them is a testament to that.


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## Sallow (Jun 6, 2012)

MuadDib said:


> Now, you may argue that the South fired the first shot at Fort Sumter and you would be correct. That was exactly what Lincoln wanted them to do.
> 
> Charleston was the South's most major port on the Atlantic coast and the garrison at the fort would be able to stop any ships entering or leaving the harbor and charge a tariff. Do you think that it would be a sound policy to allow a foreign nation to have a fort in the harbor of one of your most significant ports?
> 
> ...



The South started the war well before Fort Sumter by starting their own government, coining their own money and engaging in insurrection. They were in absolute breach of the US Constitution.

Firing the first shot basically made it an open and shut case.


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## MuadDib (Jun 6, 2012)

Sallow said:


> MuadDib said:
> 
> 
> > Sallow said:
> ...



Wrong again!

It was not an insurrection: it was a secession. Those are two very different things. The South was never out to conquer the US government. They simply wanted to go their separate way much as the 13 Colonies did from England.

Liberia never saw its influx of American blacks because the US was busy fighting the war from 1861-1865. Lincoln's plan for colonization died with him right after the war's end in 1865. 

The Radical Republicans amended the Constitution to free the slaves and grant them citizenship to dump them on the Southern states as punishment for the war. The Black Codes and state constitutions of the Northern states prohibited them from moving to the North.


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## MuadDib (Jun 6, 2012)

Sallow said:


> MuadDib said:
> 
> 
> > Now, you may argue that the South fired the first shot at Fort Sumter and you would be correct. That was exactly what Lincoln wanted them to do.
> ...



Really? Show me where the US Constitution prohibits states from seceding.


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## Sallow (Jun 6, 2012)

MuadDib said:


> Sallow said:
> 
> 
> > MuadDib said:
> ...





This is laughable.

The South was US terroritory..so the Southerns absolutely sought to take it.

Secession isn't legal in the US constitution..either. They were in breach.

And the South wasn't "punished". Far from it..it was rebuilt.


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## MuadDib (Jun 6, 2012)

Sallow said:


> MuadDib said:
> 
> 
> > Sallow said:
> ...



The South was not US territory after secession any more than the US was British territory after the Declaration of Independence and the ratification of the Articles of Confederation or the Constitution.

Seriously, cite me an article, paragraph, clause, or amendment in the US Constitution that says secession is a breach. I have my copy of the US Constitution right here in my briefcase and can verify it if you tell me where it says that.


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## MuadDib (Jun 6, 2012)

No answer?

I'll help you:



> *Amendment X*
> 
> 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.



Oh, wait, that didn't help you. It just proved my point.

Sorry! My bad!


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## Greenbeard (Jun 6, 2012)

MuadDib said:


> The troubles between North and South were over tariffs, not slavery. [...]
> 
> Lincoln campaigned in 1860 in favor of the Morrill Tariff. That was why he did not appear on the ballots in any of the Southern states, not slavery. After his election and before his inauguration, he gave a speech in Philadelphia promising to sign the tariff bill if Congress passed it. They did pass it and President James Buchanan signed it into law as one of his final acts.



Confederate States of America - Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union:



> The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor 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 labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
> 
> This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.
> 
> ...



Damn revisionist 1860 South Carolinians! Toeing the progressive line again that slavery was their motivation.


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## Sallow (Jun 6, 2012)

MuadDib said:


> No answer?
> 
> I'll help you:
> 
> ...



That absolutely does not give states rights to leave the Union..

And there are several clauses that keep them from doing so as well..



> Section 10 - Powers prohibited of States
> 
> No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
> 
> ...





> Article VI - Debts, Supremacy, Oaths
> 
> All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.
> 
> ...



You really should read this thing before you start your bullshit.


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## MuadDib (Jun 6, 2012)

Sallow said:


> MuadDib said:
> 
> 
> > No answer?
> ...



No, you should. There's absolutely nothing there that forbids a state from seceding. In fact, many of the Founders and Framers predicted that it would eventually happen.

Take Jefferson for example:



> 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.
> 
> 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 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...


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## MuadDib (Jun 6, 2012)

Greenbeard said:


> MuadDib said:
> 
> 
> > The troubles between North and South were over tariffs, not slavery. [...]
> ...



You might note that there were 5 Union states that all had chattel slavery throughout the war: Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri. The Federal capitol in Washington City had slavery when the war began, but abolished it in 1862...and appropriated $600,000 to repatriate their slaves back to Africa. Adjusted for inflation, that's about $60,000,000 in today's money.

Practically every officer in the Union army had servants. Grant was a slave owner through his wife, Julia Dent Grant. When Richmond fell, Julia was the only person allowed to be escorted through the streets of Richmond by her slaves and it was said that she openly flaunted it. The Grants did not emancipate their slaves until the ratification of the 13th Amendment in December 1865.

Early in the war, Grant gave a newspaper interview in which he said, "If I thought this war was to abolish slavery, I would resign my commission and offer my sword to the other side." Some Progressive historians try to claim that his enemies made that up, but that's false. It is a documented quote.

Union Gen. J.G. Foster was quite noted for his harem filled with "sable beauty". 

The North was so desperate to keep their Southern tariff money coming in that they offered the Corwin Amendment, which would have allowed the slave states to keep their slaves and promised that the Federal government would never bother slavery again if they would just return to the Union. It was not ratified only because the representatives of the Southern states were no longer present in Congress to vote on it. The Corwin Amendment was not sunsetted and technically remains open for ratification to this day, although it's been pretty much superseded by the 13th Amendment. The Corwin Amendment was supported by...Abraham Lincoln!

Some of the most ardent Unionists in loyalist East Tennessee were the largest slaveholders in that region. When Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, he exempted certain areas of Louisiana because one of his close friends owned a big sugar cane plantation there.

What made slavery such an issue was the fact that when an emancipation amendment to the Constitution was proposed, there had never been a constitutional amendment or provision that had ever granted the government the power to take away anyone's private property. If that power was granted, the concern was over further abuse of it and one only has to look at the problems that we have today over eminent domain. 

If the Federal government was given the power to seize private property, where would it end? To see what the people of that time were thinking and what they were concerned about, you only have to look as far as the 14th Amendment.

The 14 Amendment granted citizenship to the former slaves. Nothing wrong with that and certainly the right thing to do. Right? Except that the way it was written, it created the problems that we have today with "anchor babies" and illegal immigration.

The people of that time knew something that we have forgotten today: laws can have unintended consequences, so you need to be very careful when you pass them.

Sorry, but your argument falls flat in the face of facts. There is revisionist history, but it's neither Southerners nor conservatives who revised it. All of these things were well known until the Progressive movement emerged in the early 20th century and started rewriting it, and the people who lived during the war and knew these facts gradually died off, allowing it to be forgotten.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 6, 2012)

Sallow said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > Sallow said:
> ...



Completely irrelevant. Either they were traitors, or they weren't. Either they had the right to secede from the British Empire, or they didn't. Whether you're British or American doesn't change that fact.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 6, 2012)

Sallow said:


> MuadDib said:
> 
> 
> > KevinWestern said:
> ...



Lincoln never changed his mind regarding colonization. He supported it to his dying day.

[ame]http://www.amazon.com/Colonization-After-Emancipation-Movement-Resettlement/dp/0826219098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1338995988&sr=8-1[/ame]


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 6, 2012)

Greenbeard said:


> MuadDib said:
> 
> 
> > The troubles between North and South were over tariffs, not slavery. [...]
> ...



Of course many states, such as Virginia, only seceded after Lincoln imposed his blockade on southern ports.


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## MuadDib (Jun 6, 2012)

The Great Emancipator and the Issue of Race


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## OldUSAFSniper (Jun 6, 2012)

The civil war started in my home state (Kansas) ten years before the confederacy shelled Fort Sumner.  I am a student of history (albeit amateur) and this period is so incredibly interesting to me.  I've traveled to as many battle sites as possible and if a new book comes out on the subject, I usually have it.

The troubles started over slavery and the civil war was defined by the issue of slavery.  Eventually, during the course of the war, I believe that the south realized that to be considered a nation by Europeans (something it would need to even have a chance to survive), it would have to abolish slavery as well.  However, the trouble began when the Kansas territory was declared free and this just absolutely was a tipping point for those in Missouri and the south that wanted it to be a slave state.  Lawrence was burned and thousands died in a cross-border war defined by brutality and murder.  John Brown didn't make it any better by attempting his little foray.

I do understand and agree (to a point) with the southern concept of being left alone to shape policies as close to home as possible (on the state level).  As many Virginians and other southerners have written, it is core to the concept of the United States of America (the very existence of the 10th Amendment gives rise to this belief).  However, there are issues and times when the federal government must exercise it's authority to mandate policies for the entire country (otherwise there wouldn't even be a federal government).  Slavery was one of those times and Lincoln knew this.  Slavery was an abomination and was only being maintained due to it's impact on the cotton and other agricultural industries.  The coming industrial revolution (cotton gin and combines) would have made slavery obsolete in either case.  But we are talking about men here, not a commodity.  Frederick Douglas did such a good job of reminding northerners of this fact that hostilities to end slavery were inevitable.

Southerners believed, in my opinion falsely, that if the federal government exercised it's authority over an issue (any issue) then they had the right to leave the union.  What ensued was a conflaguration of such magnitude that literally hundreds of thousands of men died in battle, millions died as a result of starvation and disease, and the face of this nation was changed forever.

Jefferson Davis, Robert E Lee, Longstreet and others KNEW what they were doing when they joined the confederacy.  AND, I believe they knew the eventual outcome was almost a guarantee.  I celebrate them as men who followed their conscious AND their heart.  In Lee's and Longstreet's case, they were genius'.  But, they were wrong...

If you go to certain places in this country and speak with the residences regarding the war, you can still feel the raw nerves... and hear the stories that have been handed down from one generation to another.  150 years since and it still is a topic of great contention...

Happy Birthday Mr. Davis...


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## Unkotare (Jun 6, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Delaware, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland, and Missouri were all slave states that remained in the Union. If it was all about the "suffering of the black man," then why didn't Lincoln end slavery in those states?




He didn't have the power to do so.


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## KevinWestern (Jun 6, 2012)

MuadDib said:


> KevinWestern said:
> 
> 
> > Kevin_Kennedy said:
> ...




I don't disagree that taxation played a role in the reasoning to secede from the Union, but to say it was the _main _reason or the ONLY reason - in my view - is incorrect. I believe that without the issue of slavery, and the northern threat to abolish that institution via the Federal Gov't, I don't believe the Civil War would have ever occurred. To say that the threat of the abolition of slavery did not play into the reasoning behind the secession is laughable (sorry, but that's my opinion). 

Also, why is it significant whether or not Lincoln was a pure abolitionist at heart anyways? He was driven by northern interests, and he _did _abolish slavery - didn't he? Actions speak much more strongly than words....


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## Unkotare (Jun 6, 2012)

KevinWestern said:


> he _did _abolish slavery - didn't he?




No, he did not.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 6, 2012)

Unkotare said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > Delaware, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland, and Missouri were all slave states that remained in the Union. If it was all about the "suffering of the black man," then why didn't Lincoln end slavery in those states?
> ...



If he didn't have the power to end slavery in the border states, then he certainly didn't have the power to end slavery in the Confederacy. However, this is a rather lame excuse. Lincoln did many things that he didn't have the authority or power to do. Suspending habeas corpus, imprisoning hundreds of northern citizens for speaking out against him, shutting down opposition newspapers in the north, deporting a Democratic Congressman, etc... etc...


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 6, 2012)

KevinWestern said:


> MuadDib said:
> 
> 
> > KevinWestern said:
> ...



Technically no, Lincoln never freed a single slave. The slaves were freed by the Thirteenth Amendment, which came after Lincoln's death.


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## Unkotare (Jun 6, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Unkotare said:
> 
> 
> > Kevin_Kennedy said:
> ...




Of course he did, as Commander-in-Chief.


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## KevinWestern (Jun 6, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Two reasons. For starters, as I've already stated in this thread, there were slave states that remained in the Union. So I suppose I can turn your question around on you: Where do you find justification for supporting the northern cause, given that they also practiced slavery? I give neither the side the moral high ground on this issue, and condemn them both. The second reason is that I believe in the right to self-government as put forth by our Declaration of Independence.
> 
> "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 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.*"



But Kevin, you dont think that there was a very real, and very powerful abolitionist movement brewing in the north? You dont think the southern states felt at all threatened by this, and the growing possibility that the Northern States  via their representation within the Federal Govt  could abolish slavery at the National level? 

Sure, there were Northern practitioners of slavery, but when it comes down to it the North was the half of the country that was threatening to end slavery  NOT the south. Agree? 

Also, although I believe that States should be allowed to govern themselves to a much greater extent than they are allowed today, I do believe that there are certain rules (certain very important rules that protect the dignity of all human beings) that the Federal Government should be allowed to enforce across the entire country. Making slavery illegal  in my view  is one of those rules that I deem appropriate for a Federal Government to enforce. A state  for instance  shouldnt be able to vote that all Mexicans must volunteer at least 15 hrs a week to public service or else be forced to move; the Federal Government should have the ability to prevent that State from passing such a measure..



Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Furthermore, I'm of the opinion that if you condemn the Confederates then you must also logically condemn the colonists who seceded from the British Empire. The colonists practiced slavery at the time of their independence, and yet people seem far more willing to forgive them than they are the Confederates. It's hypocrisy, as far as I can tell.



Kevin  at the time of the American Revolution, the abolition of slavery was not a key driving issue of the war, unfortunately. Both the British Empire and the Colonists supported slavery, so it's really a moot point. It's not hypocrisy at all. 

If the British Empire supported the abolition of slaves, and that was one of the key reasons that the Colonists wanted independence, then perhaps there would be some hypocrisy present...


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 6, 2012)

Unkotare said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > Unkotare said:
> ...



... Then he also had the power to do it in the border states, as Commander-in-Chief.


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## Unkotare (Jun 6, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Unkotare said:
> 
> 
> > Kevin_Kennedy said:
> ...



Only in those states in open rebellion against the Union during a time of war. Come on, you must know this.


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## Synthaholic (Jun 6, 2012)

I don't wish traitors a happy birthday.

Don't come around looking for one on Mitch McConnell's birthday, either.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 6, 2012)

KevinWestern said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > Two reasons. For starters, as I've already stated in this thread, there were slave states that remained in the Union. So I suppose I can turn your question around on you: Where do you find justification for supporting the northern cause, given that they also practiced slavery? I give neither the side the moral high ground on this issue, and condemn them both. The second reason is that I believe in the right to self-government as put forth by our Declaration of Independence.
> ...



No, I don't believe that at all. The abolitionist movement was quite small, even in the north, and certainly had no political power. Abolitionists were not fond of Lincoln, and he was not fond of them. The south had far too much political power in the federal government to ever let a ban on slavery pass. There was never a chance of that happening.

And no, as I've already stated, the north was not threatening to end slavery. The only thing that can be said of the north is that they opposed the expansion of slavery because it would continue to give the south increased representation in the federal government, and people like Lincoln opposed expansion because he wanted the work that slaves would do for free white labor instead. Like I said, the north in general, not counting the small percentage of abolitionists, had little problem with slavery as it existed.

If you want these "rules" as you call them to be enforced by the federal government then you need a constitutional amendment to give them the right to enforce these rules. However, I think people seem to forget about the state constitutions in discussions of federalism. The states can't simply do whatever they want either.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 6, 2012)

KevinWestern said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > Furthermore, I'm of the opinion that if you condemn the Confederates then you must also logically condemn the colonists who seceded from the British Empire. The colonists practiced slavery at the time of their independence, and yet people seem far more willing to forgive them than they are the Confederates. It's hypocrisy, as far as I can tell.
> ...



Surely slavery itself is the crime, and not wanting to secede to protect slavery? The fact is that the colonists practiced slavery, regardless of whether that was one of the issues that seceded from the British Empire over. Furthermore, the British offered any slave who joined them their freedom. So perhaps Britain really did have the moral high ground against the colonists?


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 6, 2012)

Unkotare said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > Unkotare said:
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If that were the case then by what right did he exercise his "power" as "Commander-in-Chief" to suspend habeas corpus in the north, imprison hundreds of northern citizens, shut down opposition newspapers, and deport a northern Democratic Congressman from Ohio? Surely if his power as Commander-in-Chief gives him the authority to do those things in the north, then he would also have the power to end slavery in the border states as Commander-in-Chief.

Furthermore, this excuse doesn't explain why he didn't immediately end slavery in Confederate territory captured by the Union, such as New Orleans. New Orleans was "in open rebellion" at the time of its capture, so why didn't he end slavery there since he had the power to do so as Commander-in-Chief according to you?


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## KevinWestern (Jun 6, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> KevinWestern said:
> 
> 
> > Kevin_Kennedy said:
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I don't congratulate the colonists for practicing slavery. All I'm saying is that because both the Colonists and the British Empire - at that time - practiced slavery (and the fact that it was not a key driver in the decision to declare independence) I think it's a totally moot point, period. The Colonists also didn't allow women to vote, either, but again when discussing the American Revolution that is an irrelevant point because *it was not what they were fighting for at the time*. 

And if you don't believe that slavery was a driver behind the Civil War - fine - but I do, and also believe that the North was the "side" that supported/was capable of abolishing it. Therefore I "side" with the north in this thread, and will state that I'm glad they won the battle (and not the South) because it resulted in the abrupt end to slavery. 

You bring up some interesting points of information about Lincoln and his view towards abolitionism I will research on my own, however... so thank you.


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## Katzndogz (Jun 6, 2012)

The Civil War was fought because the South seceeded from the union.  Had the south not seceeded but instead did not oppose the tariffs would there have been a civil war over slavery?

No.


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## Liability (Jun 6, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Jefferson Davis was born June 3, 1808, and he was the first and only President of the Confederate States of America. *He believed in peace, free trade, and the American idea of self-government.*
> 
> "All we ask is to be let alone." - Jefferson Davis





He believed in peace except for that whole Civil War thing.

He believed in free trade -- of slaves.

And he believed in the American idea of self-government, except for "those" African descendants.

Fuck his filthy memory.


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## KevinWestern (Jun 6, 2012)

Katzndogz said:


> The Civil War was fought because the South seceeded from the union.  Had the south not seceeded but instead did not oppose the tariffs would there have been a civil war over slavery?
> 
> No.



I believe the South seceded from the Union largely in part because they felt that the institution of slavery could be abolished via the Federal Government...


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 6, 2012)

Liability said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > Jefferson Davis was born June 3, 1808, and he was the first and only President of the Confederate States of America. *He believed in peace, free trade, and the American idea of self-government.*
> ...



A war started by Lincoln.

Yes, he practiced slavery, which really has little to do with one's position on free trade.

Yes, he believed in the America idea of self-government. Thomas Jefferson did as well, and I have heard rumors that he might have been a slaveowner as well.

I doubt you say fuck the "filthy" memory of the slave-owning colonists who seceded from the British Empire.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 6, 2012)

KevinWestern said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > KevinWestern said:
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I don't think it necessarily matters what they seceded over. Either the right to secession exists, or it doesn't.

I actually have no problem saying that slavery was an issue behind the south's decision to secede. Many of the states said it themselves. My position is that it's not the only issue that drove them to it.


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## KevinWestern (Jun 6, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> KevinWestern said:
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If the unfair taxation was the only reason the Southern states left the Union, than I&#8217;d have no problem either (a) supporting their stance (the fight for fairness), or at least (b) approaching the Civil War from a neutral viewpoint. However, because upholding the institution of slavery was one of the core reasons the Southern States seceded, I approach the civil war with a view that the North held the higher moral ground with regards to this particular conflict. 

The South didn&#8217;t want to lose their right to own slaves and left the Union as a result&#8230;. I just can&#8217;t support that stance to any degree.


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## bigrebnc1775 (Jun 6, 2012)

RockyRacoon said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
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Ever read the emancipation proclamation? Who did Lincoln free?

One more thing Lincoln wanted to make slavery Constitutional

Lincoln's slavery forever amendment read as follows:

"No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State. (See U.S. House of Representatives, 106th Congress, 2nd Session, The Constitution of the United States of America: Unratified Amendments, Doc. No. 106-214).

The Lincoln Cult's Latest Cover-Up by Thomas DiLorenzo

Lincoln was a racist

The Great Emancipator Abraham Lincoln and the Issue of Race


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## NLT (Jun 6, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Liability said:
> 
> 
> > Kevin_Kennedy said:
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Lincoln was a cadet at the citadel in charleston and fired on Ft Sumter?


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## bigrebnc1775 (Jun 6, 2012)

NLT said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > Liability said:
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Lincoln sent reinforcements to Sumter


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 6, 2012)

NLT said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
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> > Liability said:
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I've already explained in this thread how it was Lincoln who started the war. You are, of course, free to disagree with my reasoning.


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## Unkotare (Jun 6, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Unkotare said:
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> > Kevin_Kennedy said:
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Trying to change the subject proves you realize you were wrong.


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## NLT (Jun 6, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Jefferson Davis was born June 3, 1808, and he was the first and only President of the Confederate States of America. He believed in peace, free trade, and the American idea of self-government.
> 
> "All we ask is to be let alone." - Jefferson Davis


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## Sallow (Jun 6, 2012)

MuadDib said:


> Sallow said:
> 
> 
> > MuadDib said:
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Maybe I posted to much for you to absorb in one chunk..because you obviously didn't read it.

I will break it down for you..



> Section 10 - Powers prohibited of States



This is a Prohibition set by the constitution on the powers of the state.



> No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money;



This part of the clause prohibits (Remember that word?) states from entering into any groupings of states outside what the Constitution defines as the "United" States. Conferation should have been a good clue as to why FORMING A CONFEDERATION OF STATES was prohibited.

They also can't coin money..or do lots of other things.

Like form their own government on US territory..

It's in English..so I don't get why you didn't understand it.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 6, 2012)

Unkotare said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
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I didn't change the subject.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 6, 2012)

Sallow said:


> MuadDib said:
> 
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They couldn't form a confederation while still a part of the Union, but once they seceded, which is not prohibited in the Constitution, they were no longer part of the Union and the Constitution no longer applied.


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## JWBooth (Jun 6, 2012)

MuadDib said:


> You might note that there were 5 Union states that all had chattel slavery throughout the war: Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri. The Federal capitol in Washington City had slavery when the war began, but abolished it in 1862...and appropriated $600,000 to repatriate their slaves back to Africa. Adjusted for inflation, that's about $60,000,000 in today's money.
> 
> Practically every officer in the Union army had servants. Grant was a slave owner through his wife, Julia Dent Grant. When Richmond fell, Julia was the only person allowed to be escorted through the streets of Richmond by her slaves and it was said that she openly flaunted it. The Grants did not emancipate their slaves until the ratification of the 13th Amendment in December 1865.
> 
> ...


Truth


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## Dante (Jun 6, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Jefferson Davis was born June 3, 1808, and he was the first and only President of the Confederate States of America. He believed in peace, free trade, and the American idea of self-government.
> 
> "All we ask is to be let alone." - Jefferson Davis



Criminals get pardoned.


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## Katzndogz (Jun 6, 2012)

KevinWestern said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > KevinWestern said:
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Endling slavery didn't become a reason until the civil war had already been going on for some time.  The Emancipation Proclimation wasn't given until the third year of the civil war and that only prohibited slavery in secessionist states.   Lincoln ended slavery as a punishment to the states for seceeding. 

There is what you know and that is driven by what you want to know instead of what actually happened.   Trying to educate someone convinced that the civil war was fought over slavery is as hard as trying to convince someone from Stormfront that Jews didn't cause WWII.

If we just taught real and factual American history none of this would be necessary.


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## Liability (Jun 6, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Liability said:
> 
> 
> > Kevin_Kennedy said:
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Because LINCOLN fired on Ft. Sumter.  

Of course.


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## Dante (Jun 6, 2012)

Dante said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > Jefferson Davis was born June 3, 1808, and he was the first and only President of the Confederate States of America. He believed in peace, free trade, and the American idea of self-government.
> ...



Jefferson Davis was never pardoned in his lifetime because refused to ask for a pardon. He was pardoned by Pres. Jimmy Carter.

List of people pardoned or granted clemency by the President of the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## Dante (Jun 6, 2012)

Liability said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > Liability said:
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What is the differences between the Confederacy and al qaeda, seeing that both declared war on the United States?


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## slackjawed (Jun 6, 2012)

This thread stands as evidence that our public schools are  failing to educate our children.

Revisionist history as well as judging the actions of people in history using the lense of modern times is not educating. 

In fact, that is really close to brainwashing, if it hasn't crossed that line.......


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 6, 2012)

Liability said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
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> > Liability said:
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If that's what I thought then yes, I'd be . Fortunately for me, it's not.


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## hortysir (Jun 6, 2012)

Polk said:


> I really don't understand this obsession southerners have with trying to claim there was some noble cause by the Civil War. Southerners were afraid Lincoln and the Republicans in Congress were going to end slavery, so they took up arms to protect their "right" to own other human beings like sacks of potatoes. Instead of acknowledging this fact, you try to claim Lincoln was secretly pro-slavery because he didn't say "Yeah, let's go ahead and let these rebels win by giving them a big chunk of additional territory".



So THAT"S why Lincoln drafted an Article to the Constitution that would have PERMANENTLY left the decision of slavery up to the states!

Thing is, only his home state of Illinois ratified it before war broke out.

Lincoln cared only about preserving the Union and keeping control of ALL the states and their resources.

People accuse Boooosh of only being "about the oil".
Lincoln was about the tobacco, cotton, citrus, etc.....



> *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;*


Abraham Lincoln's Letter to Horace Greeley


btw, that quote is etched in marble inside the Lincoln Memorial


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 6, 2012)

slackjawed said:


> This thread stands as evidence that our public schools are  failing to educate our children.
> 
> Revisionist history as well as judging the actions of people in history using the lense of modern times is not educating.
> 
> In fact, that is really close to brainwashing, if it hasn't crossed that line.......



You may rest assured that my 8th grade history teacher taught me nothing that I've said in this thread.


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## hortysir (Jun 6, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Jefferson Davis was born June 3, 1808, and he was the first and only President of the Confederate States of America. He believed in peace, free trade, and the American idea of self-government.
> 
> "All we ask is to be let alone." - Jefferson Davis



Oh, and happy birthday, JD


We were returning from DC by way of MO, on the interstate, and saw one of those brown 'historical site' signs. 
It was for the Jefferson Davis Monument.
I couldn't get over in time so we took the next exit and turned around. Funny thing is, driving North there was no sign but we exited anyway, and after crossing the overpass back&forth we found the small little directional sign.
After about 15 minutes of winding, hilly roads we saw it before we were any where near it!!
It was HUGE! And bore an uncanny resemblance to another 1st President


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## slackjawed (Jun 6, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> slackjawed said:
> 
> 
> > This thread stands as evidence that our public schools are  failing to educate our children.
> ...



lol


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## Katzndogz (Jun 6, 2012)

Dante said:


> Liability said:
> 
> 
> > Kevin_Kennedy said:
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The Confederacy didn't want to do anything more than leave.


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## Liability (Jun 6, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Liability said:
> 
> 
> > Kevin_Kennedy said:
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Well unfortunately for you, it's pretty much what you had SAID.  But  the firing on Ft. Sumter IS what started the Civil War.  

So, while I appreciate your immediate withdrawal from that absurd claim you had made, you are still stuck looking quite silly.


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## elvis (Jun 6, 2012)

Liability said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > Liability said:
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He always looks silly.


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## elvis (Jun 6, 2012)

Dante said:


> Liability said:
> 
> 
> > Kevin_Kennedy said:
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Confederacy came a lot closer to destroying America.


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## slackjawed (Jun 6, 2012)

If you believe republicans are evil people, then you will believe that lincoln is like modern day republicans and is therefore evil.

I know that the firing on ft sumpter started the conflict that was the civil war, but that was just the last straw in a long political battle that started much earlier. Some say it started at the birth of our nation. By the time ft sumpter was fired on, the confederacy already existed. Several elected officials and army officers had already left thier posts to be part of the confederacy. J. Davis was a US senator prior to being president of the confederacy.

If Lincoln had wanted to start a war, he could have used just that fact to promote a war. It was an organized rebellion. He didn't. He issued plea after plea for reunification. The confederacy on the other hand issued an order for federal troops to abandon their posts at ft sumpter, Lincoln defied that order knowing that if they fired on that fort he would have public support for the war. 

The difference between the confederacy and al quaeda is al quaeda wants to destroy us, the confederacy wanted independence. They even had plans to trade with the united states once their independence was established and recognized.

My personal opinion is that the circumstances surrounding the civil war led to a loss of states rights, and in turn a loss of personal rights for us citizens. I express the opinion that while the federal government won, the citizens lost the war.

In wars there are never any totally good guys, or totally bad guys. davis and lincoln were neither all good nor all bad, they were just humans. Additionally both should be judged by the standards of the time they lived in, not by our modern standards.


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## elvis (Jun 6, 2012)

If someone started a thread which said "happy birthday bin laden", the ire would be unreal, and rightfully so.   Yet Jefferson Davis represents the destruction of the US even more than Osama did.  Kevin Is a traitorous ungrateful little bastard.


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## Greenbeard (Jun 6, 2012)

MuadDib said:


> Sorry, but your argument falls flat in the face of facts.



I didn't make an argument. I posted, verbatim, South Carolina's explanation of the "causes which induce and justify" its desire to secede from the Union, triggering the secession crisis. In their own words the answer is simple: slavery.

Lincoln, contrary to the "non-revisionist" assertion that he was disliked because of his views on tariffs, is explicitly identified as being offensive because he was a man _"whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that 'Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,' and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction."_

Your argument is with the secessionists of South Carolina, not with me. It is they who hold the "progressive" view of the causes of secession. Though I, of course, don't disagree with them.


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## hortysir (Jun 6, 2012)

elvis said:


> If someone started a thread which said "happy birthday bin laden", the ire would be unreal, and rightfully so.   Yet Jefferson Davis represents the destruction of the US even more than Osama did.  Kevin Is a traitorous ungrateful little bastard.



You really can't fathom the idea of an individual state having the ability to choose it's own path, can you?

Lincoln understood it enough to try to lure the states back to the Union with that same promise.

As Colonial nation we were able to cede from GB but, somehow, the South wasn't granted the same ability to separate itself from the Union.


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## Sunni Man (Jun 6, 2012)

Anyone who thinks the Civil War was fought over slavery is very naive.

And people who think the Southern states were in the wrong; do not know the intentions of the Founding Fathers or the meaning of the Constitution.


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## Katzndogz (Jun 6, 2012)

elvis said:


> If someone started a thread which said "happy birthday bin laden", the ire would be unreal, and rightfully so.   Yet Jefferson Davis represents the destruction of the US even more than Osama did.  Kevin Is a traitorous ungrateful little bastard.



The US would not have been destroyed.  It would have gone on, just a bit smaller.  Or, it may have reunified at some point in the future.   Likely though, it would look like North and South Korea with a prosperous South and a starving North.


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## hortysir (Jun 6, 2012)

Katzndogz said:


> elvis said:
> 
> 
> > If someone started a thread which said "happy birthday bin laden", the ire would be unreal, and rightfully so.   Yet Jefferson Davis represents the destruction of the US even more than Osama did.  Kevin Is a traitorous ungrateful little bastard.
> ...


^^^^ This


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## Againsheila (Jun 6, 2012)

RockyRacoon said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > RockyRacoon said:
> ...



4 slave holding states remained with the north and their slaves were exempted from the Emancipation Proclamation.  The north's slaves were not freed until AFTER the Civil War.


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## elvis (Jun 6, 2012)

hortysir said:


> elvis said:
> 
> 
> > If someone started a thread which said "happy birthday bin laden", the ire would be unreal, and rightfully so.   Yet Jefferson Davis represents the destruction of the US even more than Osama did.  Kevin Is a traitorous ungrateful little bastard.
> ...


Fathom the idea?  Yes.  Is it a good idea.  Absolutely not.


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## hortysir (Jun 6, 2012)

elvis said:


> hortysir said:
> 
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> > elvis said:
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Couldn't bare to hear the FF's refer to us as "These united states"?????


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## Unkotare (Jun 6, 2012)

Katzndogz said:


> Likely though, it would look like North and South Korea with a prosperous South and a starving North.




That makes absolutely no sense. But then, very little you post does.


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## elvis (Jun 6, 2012)

hortysir said:


> elvis said:
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I like baring certain things.


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## elvis (Jun 6, 2012)

Unkotare said:


> Katzndogz said:
> 
> 
> > Likely though, it would look like North and South Korea with a prosperous South and a starving North.
> ...



To be fair, I think Katz is comparing the north to south korea...


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## elvis (Jun 6, 2012)

hortysir said:


> elvis said:
> 
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> > hortysir said:
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I don't like the idea of having 50 separate countries...

No.


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## Unkotare (Jun 6, 2012)

elvis said:


> Unkotare said:
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> > Katzndogz said:
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Doesn't read like it, and the comparison would still make no sense.


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## elvis (Jun 6, 2012)

Unkotare said:


> elvis said:
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> > Unkotare said:
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I agree it doesn't read like it.


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## Sallow (Jun 6, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Sallow said:
> 
> 
> > MuadDib said:
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You guys are really stuck on "exact" words..on certain things. Yes..secession is prohibited by the Constitution.

There is, maybe, one way, it could legally be done..and that would be by an act of congress.

But that would be near to impossible.


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## elvis (Jun 6, 2012)

Sallow said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > Sallow said:
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It's prohibited now.   But it was not at the time of the civil war. I believe the constitution was amended to prohibit it.


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## Sallow (Jun 6, 2012)

elvis said:


> Sallow said:
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> > Kevin_Kennedy said:
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The State Prohibitions were not amendments.

And this sort of thing was tried before several times..with the same result.

Check out the Whiskey Rebellion..


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 6, 2012)

Liability said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > Liability said:
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I'm not backing away from anything I actually said, merely whatever nonsense it is that you're trying to claim I said.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 6, 2012)

elvis said:


> If someone started a thread which said "happy birthday bin laden", the ire would be unreal, and rightfully so.   Yet Jefferson Davis represents the destruction of the US even more than Osama did.  Kevin Is a traitorous ungrateful little bastard.



Don't hold back, tell us how you really feel.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 6, 2012)

Sallow said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
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> > Sallow said:
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Who's "you guys?"


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## MuadDib (Jun 7, 2012)

KevinWestern said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > KevinWestern said:
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These issues of taxation had been brewing between the North and South ever since the War of 1812. In fact, during that war, several Northern states threatened to secede because they disagreed with the war and wanted to negotiate a seperate peace with Great Britain.

I think it's undeniable that even if the Southern states had abolished slavery on their own by 1860, the Civil War would still have happened because abolition did nothing to address the issues of taxation, trade, and political differences between the two sections.

That said, if secession had not happened and if the radical abolitionists had backed off and stopped agitating, I believe that the slave states would have abolished it on their own in not much longer than it took to fight the war. It was the Age of Enlightenment. Attitudes were changing. Not to mention that England and France, the South's largest trading partners, were applying a lot of diplomatic pressure. 

Agricultural slavery was also proving itself uneconomical. Industrial slavery had already done so. Adjusted for inflation, a slave would cost $60,000-$80,000 in today's money. That's not cheap. On top of that initial expense, you had to feed them, house them, clothe them, provide them with the basics of living and even medical care. And yes, they did provide medical care. You don't make that kind of financial investment in something that you need to make your business successful and then let them get sick or injured and die.

Many today mistakenly think that slavery was cheap or free labor when it was anything but cheap. It was cheaper just to hire workers, pay them a wage, and let them sort those costs of living out for themselves.


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## MuadDib (Jun 7, 2012)

Sallow said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
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> > Sallow said:
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I'll ask you again to show me the article, paragraph, clause, or amendment in the Constitution that prohibits secession.

You can't. There is none.


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## hortysir (Jun 7, 2012)

MuadDib said:


> KevinWestern said:
> 
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> > Kevin_Kennedy said:
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Fucking logic!!
Who invited you here?


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## Katzndogz (Jun 7, 2012)

elvis said:


> Unkotare said:
> 
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> > Katzndogz said:
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To be really fair, I was comparing the North to North Korea.   Had the civil war not devastated the south, irreparably, the South would have been far more propserous than the North.   The South after all, had more major ports than the North and was ready to grow a manufacturing base.


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## Dante (Jun 8, 2012)

Katzndogz said:


> Dante said:
> 
> 
> > Liability said:
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and how many Americans died? how many were crippled and maimed? what are the consequences of actions?


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## Dante (Jun 8, 2012)

elvis said:


> Dante said:
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> 
> > Liability said:
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## Dante (Jun 8, 2012)

Sunni Man said:


> 1) Anyone who thinks the Civil War was fought over slavery is very naive.
> 
> And people who think the Southern states were in the wrong; do not know the intentions of the Founding Fathers or the meaning of the Constitution.



1) Facts and South Carolina says differently

2) The intention of the Founding Fathers are secondary to the intention of the ratifier of the US Constitution. The Founding Fathers and the Framers (who btw are not the ratifiers) could not agree with each other or even themselves (as the main players changed positions on key point) on the 'meaning(s)' you portend to know about.

you are a fraud


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## MuadDib (Jun 8, 2012)

Wwtjd



> *happy secession day*
> 
> by thomas j. Dilorenzo
> 
> ...


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## Cecilie1200 (Jun 8, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Jefferson Davis was born June 3, 1808, and he was the first and only President of the Confederate States of America. He believed in peace, free trade, and the American idea of self-government.
> 
> "All we ask is to be let alone." - Jefferson Davis



On behalf of Grampa, thank you.


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## Cecilie1200 (Jun 8, 2012)

RockyRacoon said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > Jefferson Davis was born June 3, 1808, and he was the first and only President of the Confederate States of America. He believed in peace, free trade, and the American idea of self-government.
> ...



Interesting story.  He actually thought the South was going to have to eventually lose slavery and industrialize like the North, or be in big trouble.  He just wasn't a big believer in the ability of freed slaves to take care of themselves.  And considering how little education the vast majority of slaves had, he had a point.

But no, he didn't join the South's side of the war for slavery.


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## Cecilie1200 (Jun 8, 2012)

RockyRacoon said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > RockyRacoon said:
> ...



No, the Union doesn't get to claim "moral high ground" on the slavery issue, no matter how much people want to pretend the war was fought to free the slaves.  The North gave up slavery primarily because it was a bad fit for their type of economy, not through any moralistic view of it.  And you'd be hard-pressed to find people in the Union army who thought they were there to free slaves.

Slavery was the most visible symbol of the philosophical divide and animosity that ran between the North and the South, but it was hardly the cause.  Lincoln grabbed onto it after the war had started to motivate the troops and keep them from leaving, since many of them were coming to the end of their enlistment, conscription wasn't an option, and he was short of money to pay them.


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## Cecilie1200 (Jun 8, 2012)

Polk said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > RockyRacoon said:
> ...



So basically, "We'll declare freedom for all the slaves in the states we don't control, and let the states on our side keep THEIR slaves as a bribe to stay in the Union."  Yeah, some "moral high ground".


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## Unkotare (Jun 8, 2012)

Cecilie1200 said:


> Lincoln grabbed onto it after the war had started to motivate the troops and keep them from leaving, since many of them were coming to the end of their enlistment, conscription wasn't an option, and he was short of money to pay them.




Um...what? Not an option? There certainly was a draft in the North as well.


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## Unkotare (Jun 8, 2012)

Cecilie1200 said:


> The North gave up slavery primarily because it was a bad fit for their type of economy, not through any moralistic view of it. .




Your personal agenda aside, that is not accurate.


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## Unkotare (Jun 8, 2012)

Cecilie1200 said:


> So basically, "We'll declare freedom for all the slaves in the states we don't control, and let the states on our side keep THEIR slaves as a bribe to stay in the Union."  Yeah, some "moral high ground".




Not a matter of a "bribe." Lincoln did not have the authority to simply declare the end of slavery in the Union. That's why we needed a Constitutional Amendment to do so after the war.


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## editec (Jun 8, 2012)

Traitor.


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## Sallow (Jun 8, 2012)

MuadDib said:


> Sallow said:
> 
> 
> > Kevin_Kennedy said:
> ...



Of course I showed it to you.

And the Constitution is online as well.


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## Greenbeard (Jun 8, 2012)

Cecilie1200 said:


> No, the Union doesn't get to claim "moral high ground" on the slavery issue, no matter how much people want to pretend the war was fought to free the slaves.  The North gave up slavery primarily because it was a bad fit for their type of economy, not through any moralistic view of it.  And you'd be hard-pressed to find people in the Union army who thought they were there to free slaves.



Northern opposition to slavery was obviously about more than just economics.

personal-liberty laws (United States history) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia


> *personal-liberty laws,*  in U.S. history, pre-Civil War laws passed by Northern state governments to counteract the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Acts and to protect escaped slaves and free blacks settled in the North.
> 
> Contravening the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, which did not provide for trial by jury, Indiana (1824) and Connecticut (1828) enacted laws making jury trials for escaped slaves possible upon appeal. In 1840 Vermont and New York granted fugitives the right of jury trial and provided them with attorneys. After 1842, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act was a federal function, some Northern state governments passed laws forbidding state authorities to cooperate in the capture and return of fugitives. In the reaction to the Fugitive Slave Act contained in the Compromise of 1850, most Northern states provided further guarantees of jury trial, authorized severe punishment for illegal seizure and perjury against alleged fugitives, and forbade state authorities to recognize claims to fugitives. These laws were among the many assaults on states rights cited as a justification for secession by South Carolina in 1860.



See South Carolina bitching and moaning about northern opposition to slavery in their Dear John letter:



> The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.
> 
> The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.





> We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.


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## Katzndogz (Jun 8, 2012)

Dante said:


> Katzndogz said:
> 
> 
> > Dante said:
> ...



How many Americans died during the Revolution, WWI, WWII?  The South was fighting for their freedom just like the Colonies fought for their freedom from the British.   If the colonies had lost, do you imagine the British would not have exacted revenge on the rebels?


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## MuadDib (Jun 8, 2012)

Cecilie1200 said:


> RockyRacoon said:
> 
> 
> > Kevin_Kennedy said:
> ...



He actually broke the law and taught his slaves to read and write.

Robert E. Lee's wife and daughter ran an illegal school for blacks at Arlington and Stonewall Jackson taught his servants so that they could read the Bible.


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## MuadDib (Jun 8, 2012)

Sallow said:


> MuadDib said:
> 
> 
> > Sallow said:
> ...



No, you didn't. There is absolutely nothing in the Constitution that forbids secession of the states.

If we were still under the Articles of Confederation, where it declares a "perpetual union", you might have had a case. But the articles were replaced by the Constitution which only declares "a more perfect union".

Sorry, but you can't "prove" something that is just not there.


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## MuadDib (Jun 8, 2012)

Greenbeard said:


> Cecilie1200 said:
> 
> 
> > No, the Union doesn't get to claim "moral high ground" on the slavery issue, no matter how much people want to pretend the war was fought to free the slaves.  The North gave up slavery primarily because it was a bad fit for their type of economy, not through any moralistic view of it.  And you'd be hard-pressed to find people in the Union army who thought they were there to free slaves.
> ...



Slavery in the North


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## MuadDib (Jun 8, 2012)

Unkotare said:


> Cecilie1200 said:
> 
> 
> > The North gave up slavery primarily because it was a bad fit for their type of economy, not through any moralistic view of it. .
> ...



They gave it up because European immigrants to the North refused to work alongside blacks and Northerners didn't want them there. That's why the Northern states amended their state constitutions to prevent blacks from moving within their borders.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 8, 2012)

Dante said:


> Katzndogz said:
> 
> 
> > Dante said:
> ...



If Lincoln hadn't tried to force them back into the Union then how many would have died?


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 8, 2012)

Unkotare said:


> Cecilie1200 said:
> 
> 
> > The North gave up slavery primarily because it was a bad fit for their type of economy, not through any moralistic view of it. .
> ...



That's actually very accurate.


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## Unkotare (Jun 8, 2012)

MuadDib said:


> Unkotare said:
> 
> 
> > Cecilie1200 said:
> ...




LOL @ people who want to find one aspect of a larger issue and say "this is why!" It almost seems as if there is some agenda...


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## Unkotare (Jun 8, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Unkotare said:
> 
> 
> > Cecilie1200 said:
> ...




No it's not, because it suggests that moral opposition to slavery was not a consideration when in fact it was. There were a number of other considerations as well, but that one cannot be discounted.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jun 8, 2012)

Unkotare said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > Unkotare said:
> ...



There weren't enough people morally opposed to slavery in the north to make it a consideration. The race riots and large number of desertions post-Emancipation Proclamation are indications of this.


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## Unkotare (Jun 8, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Unkotare said:
> 
> 
> > Kevin_Kennedy said:
> ...




That is incorrect.


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## slackjawed (Jun 8, 2012)

plenty of people in the north at that time that opposed slavery.

It was the cause of the day for all the churches.


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## MuadDib (Jun 8, 2012)

Unkotare said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > Unkotare said:
> ...



No, it is correct. Groups or individuals in the North holding a moral or religious opposition to slavery were very much a minority.

SlaveNorth


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## MuadDib (Jun 8, 2012)

Do you know who the first black slave for life at the Jamestown Colony was? John Casor.

Interesting article.


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## Againsheila (Jun 8, 2012)

Unkotare said:


> Cecilie1200 said:
> 
> 
> > The North gave up slavery primarily because it was a bad fit for their type of economy, not through any moralistic view of it. .
> ...



Interesting tidbit.  Delaware was both the first and the last state to give up slavery.


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## Unkotare (Jun 8, 2012)

MuadDib said:


> Unkotare said:
> 
> 
> > Kevin_Kennedy said:
> ...





Are you really unaware of the abolitionist movement in the North? Its history and influence upon the social and political climate of the times? When people go out of their way, as you seem to be, to make excuses or promote such flimsy arguments it is a sign that they are covering for some other agenda.


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## MuadDib (Jun 8, 2012)

Unkotare said:


> MuadDib said:
> 
> 
> > Unkotare said:
> ...



I'm quite aware of the abolitionist movement in the North. I just posted you a link to some very good info on it.

I have no agenda except factual history.


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## Unkotare (Jun 8, 2012)

Then you need to study US History more carefully.


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## Againsheila (Jun 8, 2012)

Unkotare said:


> MuadDib said:
> 
> 
> > Unkotare said:
> ...



John Brown and his abolitionists were a small crazy minority.


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## Unkotare (Jun 8, 2012)

And John Brown was the extent of the entire history of the abolitionist movement in the North?


???


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## hortysir (Jun 8, 2012)

Againsheila said:


> Unkotare said:
> 
> 
> > Cecilie1200 said:
> ...



Another interesting trivia question:

How many slave ships sailed from southern ports?
How many flew the Union flag?
How many flew a Confederate flag?


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## MuadDib (Jun 8, 2012)

hortysir said:


> Againsheila said:
> 
> 
> > Unkotare said:
> ...



They didn't call them "Yankee slave traders" for nothing.


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## demiurge (Jul 1, 2012)

MuadDib said:


> Unkotare said:
> 
> 
> > Kevin_Kennedy said:
> ...



This shit again?

Even your own article doesn't support that bullshit.

And I quote:
Slavery in the North never approached the numbers of the South. It was, numerically, a drop in the bucket compared to the South. 
and
When the Northern states gave up the last remnants of legal slavery, in the generation after the Revolution, their motives were a mix of piety, morality, and ethics; fear of a growing black population; practical economics; and the fact that the Revolutionary War had broken the Northern slaveowners' power and drained off much of the slave population.

Yes, slavery was very much a distinct minority in the South, with slavery ending in most Northern states at least half a century before the Emancipation Proclamation.  And morality and ethics were a large reason that happened, if not the only one.   Your argument that it was a minority opinion isn't supported by that piece, and most of the discussion of slavery in the North was in the  18th century, not the 19th.


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## demiurge (Jul 1, 2012)

Katzndogz said:


> The Confederacy didn't want to do anything more than leave.



Clearly untrue - as they were the ones who fired the first shots.   Indeed, cadets from the Citadel fired on the Star of the West before any of the other states even seceded.

The first shots fired were long before any group from the Confederacy petitioned Washington for the sale of Federal institutions.

Indeed, Federal institutions were seized by force before the matter was even take to the courts to determine the legality of it.


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## demiurge (Jul 1, 2012)

MuadDib said:


> I think it's undeniable that even if the Southern states had abolished slavery on their own by 1860, the Civil War would still have happened because abolition did nothing to address the issues of taxation, trade, and political differences between the two sections.



Calhoun, for all intents and purposes the guiding force behind the Nullification Crisis disagreed with this:


> _I consider the tariff act as the occasion, rather than the real cause of the present unhappy state of things. The truth can no longer be disguised, that the peculiar domestick [sic] institution of the Southern States and the consequent direction which that and her soil have given to her industry, has placed them in regard to taxation and appropriations in opposite relation to the majority of the Union, against the danger of which, if there be no protective power in the reserved rights of the states they must in the end be forced to rebel, or, submit to have their paramount interests sacrificed, their domestic institutions subordinated by Colonization and other schemes, and themselves and children reduced to wretchedness_



In other words, the issue of slavery is what led to the problems of tariffs and taxation, not vice versa.



> That said, if secession had not happened and if the radical abolitionists had backed off and stopped agitating, I believe that the slave states would have abolished it on their own in not much longer than it took to fight the war. It was the Age of Enlightenment. Attitudes were changing. Not to mention that England and France, the South's largest trading partners, were applying a lot of diplomatic pressure.



Absolutely ridiculous and not backed up by any historical precedent.  Pure wishful thinking on your part.

Quote after quote from the leaders of the Confederacy indicate that slavery was central to their philosophy and something they were willing to fight to defend.    Indeed, it was considered a religious issue, as backing for slavery was explicit in the bible, and several large schisms occurred because of differences in opinion on that issue in the major protestant sects of the time.  

Furthermore, the emancipation of the slaves was a considerable social issue in the South - the aristocracy rightly feared violence if 1/3rd of the population suddenly had to be treated as human beings.  The social upheaval in any transition there was going to be enormous, and not something that the vast majority of whites wanted to see.

At best it would have taken decades for that mess to sort itself out.  Slavery in Europe was an entirely different institution, and wasn't a large part of their daily life by the time the Enlightenment brought the issue to resolution.   It was largely a painless undertaking.

That wouldn't have been the case in the Antebellum South.


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## Truthseeker420 (Jul 1, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Jefferson Davis was born June 3, 1808, and he was the first and only President of the Confederate States of America. He believed in peace, free trade, and the American idea of self-government.
> 
> "All we ask is to be let alone." - Jefferson Davis



So he lived in a fantasy world. What about peace for the blacks? No such thing as free trade and you can't take Federal money and then betray the Union.


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## demiurge (Jul 1, 2012)

As far as Lincoln's desire to start the Civil War, there's lots of reasons to think he had no anticipation of a war forthcoming.   First and foremost was his cabinet, which was not staffed with hawks, but rather sought to be inclusive among the republicans and democrats.    It functioned very poorly as a war cabinet, and was one of the main reasons that the Union had considerably difficulties in the first few years of the war, despite holding overwhelming superiority in men and material.   

He also stated as such, numerously and openly.  Despite his personal convictions which were clearly abolitionist in nature, he promised over and over again to not impact slavery in the South.  He simply didn't want it forced on new territories as a way of balancing the national power structure.  Indeed, he was aware of Southern plans to conquer and extend slavery to Cuba and Latin America.    The Southern political bloc was consideringt his because they knew that the majority of new states would not be slaves - they therefore needed additional slave states to enter the US in order to ensure the continuation of their peculiar institution for upcoming generations.

His inauguration addressed his political take explicitly, especially the 'better angels of our nature' section of it:



> The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it". I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jul 1, 2012)

Truthseeker420 said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > Jefferson Davis was born June 3, 1808, and he was the first and only President of the Confederate States of America. He believed in peace, free trade, and the American idea of self-government.
> ...



Yes, what about peace for the blacks? The ones in Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri included. They offered to pay back the federal government, and Lincoln refused them. As for so-called betrayal, the Colonies betrayed the King and yet I doubt you're too upset about that.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jul 1, 2012)

demiurge said:


> As far as Lincoln's desire to start the Civil War, there's lots of reasons to think he had no anticipation of a war forthcoming.   First and foremost was his cabinet, which was not staffed with hawks, but rather sought to be inclusive among the republicans and democrats.    It functioned very poorly as a war cabinet, and was one of the main reasons that the Union had considerably difficulties in the first few years of the war, despite holding overwhelming superiority in men and material.
> 
> He also stated as such, numerously and openly.  Despite his personal convictions which were clearly abolitionist in nature, he promised over and over again to not impact slavery in the South.  He simply didn't want it forced on new territories as a way of balancing the national power structure.  Indeed, he was aware of Southern plans to conquer and extend slavery to Cuba and Latin America.    The Southern political bloc was consideringt his because they knew that the majority of new states would not be slaves - they therefore needed additional slave states to enter the US in order to ensure the continuation of their peculiar institution for upcoming generations.
> 
> ...



Of course he was itching for war.

"The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere."

Abraham Lincoln: First Inaugural Address. U.S. Inaugural Addresses. 1989

In other words, if he deemed it necessary to get his taxes and tariffs, there would be an invasion and the use of force.


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## demiurge (Jul 1, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Of course he was itching for war.
> 
> "The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere."
> 
> ...



He didn't recognize the legitimacy of the succession.  Therefore they must still abide by Federal law.

And he had Constitutional backing - the Supremacy Clause (Article VI, p2), and the guarantee of Republican government (Article IV, S4).  

Now I agree the Tenth Amendment has been trampled to death by the Supremacy Clause and Commerce Clause.   But I disagree that secession was legal simply by announcing it - that abolishes majority rule, and if  you argue that, you get to anarchy, because there's no way to justify any form of government if simple disagreement is enough to renounce yourself from the government.    Davis would state that was true at the State level but not the county level as part of the state, for example - and he'd have nothing to back that up but arbitrary inducement to authority.

The Confederacy should have dealt with the issue legally, as opposed to with firearms.  They might very well have won.  This was a court which after all put forward Dredd Scott. Which would have been the continuation of a horrible crime against humanity, but that was one which the people of the time were willing to accept to avoid the bloodshed that was to come.   If it had gone through the US court system, the Secession likely would have been bloodless.   But simply stating something is legal, especially something that hadn't been done in the history of the nation at that point, wasn't sufficient moral, ethical or legal justification for their later actions.   

Remember, there was no current threat to slavery when the South seceded.   It was the fact that in the future, they'd lack the ability to enforce slave laws in Congress due to their lack of political dominance that they enjoyed in the first 80 years of the country that was in question.

Ultimately there were two great tragedies to Southern Secession.   One, of course, was the continuation of slavery, but that was brought to a head, and because they couldn't continue their oppression by victory of force of arms at the battlefield, it ended with a positive result.    The North wasn't fighting for the destruction of slavery (though most would have preferred it) - the South certainly was fighting for its conintuance, as so many Southern leaders prominently discussed.   It scared them shitless, because 1/3rd of their population was black and the civil upheaval would have been tremendous - as it was.   They were rightly afraid of being murdered in their sleep.

But the far greater and lasting tragedy, is because the South cloaked their desire for the continuation of slavery in states rights, they discredited States rights for the next century and a half.   That's a crying shame, and one more reason to be disgusted with the likes of Jefferson Davis.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jul 1, 2012)

demiurge said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > Of course he was itching for war.
> ...



So because Lincoln didn't believe secession was legal, they had to abide by federal law? The Supremacy Clause merely begs the question, and since the states did not abolish or alter their republican governments in any way shape or form that clause doesn't apply. Nor would it if they had, because the Constitution no longer applied to them once they had seceded regardless.

They did deal with the issue legally, and even tried to deal with the issue diplomatically. They only resorted to guns when Lincoln gave them no other option. As for majority rule, this country is not founded upon the idea of majority rule. The founders explicitly and continually rejected the idea of democracy because it rests upon the idea of majority rule.


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## Liability (Jul 1, 2012)

Piss on Jefferson Davis' grave, to show him all the honors which are his due.  Oh, maybe shit on it, too.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jul 1, 2012)

Liability said:


> Piss on Jefferson Davis' grave, to show him all the honors which are his due.  Oh, maybe shit on it, too.



Always a class act.


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## Liability (Jul 1, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Liability said:
> 
> 
> > Piss on Jefferson Davis' grave, to show him all the honors which are his due.  Oh, maybe shit on it, too.
> ...



Yeah.  Class is what that traitorous scumbag deserves.


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## Kevin_Kennedy (Jul 1, 2012)

Liability said:


> Kevin_Kennedy said:
> 
> 
> > Liability said:
> ...



Class has little to do with what other people deserve.


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## demiurge (Jul 1, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> So because Lincoln didn't believe secession was legal, they had to abide by federal law?



The President is the one who enforces the laws of the Constitution, remember?  Yes, his POV on secession was incredibly pertinent.

He could have been overruled by SCOTUS.   If so, the South gets what they want, the ultimate expression of States rights are upheld, and the political and legal outcomes of both nations are dramatically transformed.

If not, they get a war they were going to be fighting anyway.   They just get months more to get ready.   

The attack on Sumter was a political calculation by Davis.  He and has cabinet reasoned that doing so was necessary because of radical elements in South Carolina might attack anyway, and by doing so at the behest of the Confederate government it gave stronger legitimacy to the action.  It then would help provoke other slave states to their side, which might grant the Confederacy sufficient strength to abrogate war altogether.   Both by bringing major slave states such as Virginia into the fold, and getting international recognition.  The first part worked, the later didn't.   

The only dissenter was Sec of State Toombs.   Toombs famously said in his exhortations for peace that an attack on Sumter would be "suicide, murder," and would stir a "hornet's nest" of hostility to the South. "It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal!"   He was right.



> The Supremacy Clause merely begs the question, and since the states did not abolish or alter their republican governments in any way shape or form that clause doesn't apply.



In any way, shape or form?  That's clearly not true.   The 1840s Dorr Rebellion forced SCOTUS to rule on what constituted Republican rule - they said that it was up to the Congress alone to determine that.  Luther vs Borden, 1849.  This power was invoked during Reconstruction.  The 14th and 15th Amendments made it moot.

Personally I tend to think given enough time, the peace sentiment in the North would have prevailed, and given the makeup of the Supreme Court any petition to address secession would likely have been successful.   This would have put Lincoln clearly in the wrong if he didn't accede to the ruling.



> Nor would it if they had, because the Constitution no longer applied to them once they had seceded regardless.



In theory.   As we often see, theory and reality are very different.



> They did deal with the issue legally,



There was no legal precedence for a means of secession.   The rule of law required that to be in place, and the only group that could determine a difference of opinion on that between the Executive branch and individual states was the Supreme Court.



> and even tried to deal with the issue diplomatically.



The US government couldn't accept an official envoy from a nation it did not recognize.  That was known at the time.   The envoys stayed for almost a month discussing the issue through back channels with Sec of State Seward, who asked them for more time to address the internal politics of succession, then left.  

They could have remained as a back channel, but Davis recalled them.



> They only resorted to guns when Lincoln gave them no other option.



I'm sorry, that's completely absurd.  They had tons of options - they could have allowed resupply and allowed the status quo to continue while they worked for a peaceful resolution.  They could have blockaded the fort, while not firing on it.   They had done so before and it did NOT lead to war.   If they had done so again, they would have captured Sumter out of simple logistics.    They did neither - they started a bombardment of federal land.   They forced Lincoln's hand, not the other way around.

Indeed, he promised not to reinforce the Fort, only to resupply it.   Buchannon had done the same thing at Pickens, and it didn't lead to war.



> As for majority rule, this country is not founded upon the idea of majority rule. The founders explicitly and continually rejected the idea of democracy because it rests upon the idea of majority rule.



Strike out 'Founders' and put in 'Federalists' and I'd agree with you.  However, that's an important distinction, because the Federalists were only a faction within the Founders.  Clearly we are a democratic republic - and just as clearly, stating that we uniquely have the right to abrogate any law or ruling we don't like means there's no way to form a coherent government.   Thus, the act of secession itself needed to be determined via legalistic means.    

While I tend to think the Confederacy would have been legally right if that had been ruled on (despite the ethics of the reason for their desire to secede), and likely could have triumphed, the fact they presumed they had that right when it was still in doubt ultimately led to them getting their asses kicked.

Because yes, they did have a choice - they could have continued the status quo, and Lincoln would have not been able to gather the political will necessary to address the de facto secession until it had been ruled on by the high court.


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## MuadDib (Jul 1, 2012)

You'll have to excuse demiurge. He takes a very Progressive, if not outright Marxist, view of the Civil War.

Actually, he takes those views in most of his politics.


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## Liability (Jul 1, 2012)

Kevin_Kennedy said:


> Liability said:
> 
> 
> > Kevin_Kennedy said:
> ...



Spoken in a very mindless manner; but at least your words have no inherent meaning.


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