Most Conservatives Still Believe The Civil War Wasn't Over Slavery

[Bootney Lee Farnsworth]

No theft of Federal property, no war.

So, not about slavery then, right?

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

I'm still baffled by the fact that the southern states didn't push for a constitutional amendment making succession legal.

It may have taken some time, but once they had that they could have seceded without any question.

Such a change would have taken a lot of time. Also, the realists knew it would not pass. The South chose rebellion and lost. No nation allows itself to be torn apart, even if it doesn't have a specific law saying no part of it may leave. What's more, enough people understood the original intention of the founders and their documents to see that the Union was permanent.

Where on Earth does it say it was permanent, and which founders?

"Whether we remain in one confederacy, or form into Atlantic and Mississippi confederacies, I believe not very important to the happiness of either part. Those of the western confederacy will be as much our children & descendants as those of the eastern, and I feel myself as much identified with that country, in future time, as with this; and did I now foresee a separation at some future day, yet I should feel the duty & the desire to promote the western interests as zealously as the eastern, doing all the good for both portions of our future family which should fall within my power." - Thomas Jefferson

An Anti-Democratic Manifesto Written by Lawyers for the 1%

That's why Jefferson was purposely kept out of the writing of the Constitution.

 

[francoHFW]

You po black folks are so put upon. Grow up chile.

Feeling mentally abused huh?

I get it.

Must be tough being white...in America...in 2018.

I can't imagine.

I'm sure things will get better for you...in time.

Po chile, so many white men....so little time. Put your big boy pants on and grow up....oh wait, that means you'd actually have to take responsibility for yourself. Whatever would you do if you couldn't blame whitey for everything.

Conservative whites to be precise. Misinformed conservative chumps to be precise. Conservative fools today and conservative fools in 1861, fighting for the greedy idiot conservative 1% again LOL..

Oh look, franco is trolling again. How cute.

Speak of the devil... Any argument at all? No one is more silly and regressive than conservative drones... You fought for slave owners and now for the greedy 1% and fox noise

 

[g5000]

The Civil War was fought over Southern independence, not over slavery

See post 146.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Why would anyone care about the Confederate cause? .

Ask most of the conservatives who get in their feels when this question is asked

I was born in the north in the 20th century and I have no romantic illusions about the Confederacy, but neither do I have any about Lincoln or the Union. You mocked me when I tried to narrow down your yes or no question so that I could answer it in an intelligent manner. Was the Civil War itself over slavery? No, and Lincoln admitted as much himself. Was southern secession primarily about slavery? Well, yes, for the states of the deep south it certainly was. Georgia, Mississippi, and so on. Virginia? No.

So as long as Lincoln allowed the states to have their states rights circle jerk -- with the absence of slavery -- then there wouldn't have been a war?

Because the Missouri Compromise didn't prevent it -- because states wanted their slaves.

I don't know what you're saying here. Are you asking me if Lincoln had let the southern states secede, but somehow forced them to give up slavery would there have been a war?

No, if Lincoln gave the states their states rights that they have been asking for -- except for their right to maintain slaves -- would those states stayed in the union or succeed -- if your answer is that they would have succeeded -- then that tells me that the Civil War was over slavery -- compromises were tried in the past and they failed -- because those states wanted slave labor -- not only did they want that - they made it clear that they felt blacks were meant by God to be subservient to whites -- they were wrong -- they lost -- they don't deserve passionate defenses from conservatives whose main default is to say "democrats want slavery"

I see what you're asking, but it makes no sense to ask it. Lincoln was not in a position to "give" anything to the first wave of southern states to secede because he was not president when they seceded. But, again, as I've said all along, the deep south seceded over slavery. There's no question. The question is whether the Civil War was fought over slavery, which it explicitly was not. Lincoln favored the Corwin Amendment to make slavery explicitly protected by the Constitution where it existed in the south, and did everything he could to convince southern states he had no interest in abolishing slavery. He fought the war to force them back into the Union.

Then why did so many of the states wrote in plain English -- it was over slavery?

Not one state made a justification for war without letting it be known it was over slavery and how detrimental ending the institution of slavery was to them

How could they have written that the Civil War was over slavery when the Civil War was not happening during the time the quotes you've supplied were written?

 

[del]

Americans, and clearly that means white Americans, are simply dishonest about race.

At no time in this country's history did white American believe that blacks were "that bad off", including during the height of Jim Crow atrocities.

It continues that way today, in where white Americans don't think that blacks "have it that bad" and firmly believe that it's WORSE to be CALLED racist than to have ACTUAL racism occur.

Conservatives are largely white, so....that's the long and short of it.

So basically the War of Northern Aggression has pretty much just met with an extended and somewhat sketchy cease-fire.

.​

sure

come back and get your ass kicked any time you want

That's funny ... the south won every battle that was fought here.

.​

and lost the war

keep swinging

 

[cnm]

Did he go to war for some other reason.

Theft of Federal property.

 

[g5000]

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world." - Mississippi declaration of secession

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

I'm still baffled by the fact that the southern states didn't push for a constitutional amendment making succession legal.

It may have taken some time, but once they had that they could have seceded without any question.

Such a change would have taken a lot of time. Also, the realists knew it would not pass. The South chose rebellion and lost. No nation allows itself to be torn apart, even if it doesn't have a specific law saying no part of it may leave. What's more, enough people understood the original intention of the founders and their documents to see that the Union was permanent.

Where on Earth does it say it was permanent, and which founders?

"Whether we remain in one confederacy, or form into Atlantic and Mississippi confederacies, I believe not very important to the happiness of either part. Those of the western confederacy will be as much our children & descendants as those of the eastern, and I feel myself as much identified with that country, in future time, as with this; and did I now foresee a separation at some future day, yet I should feel the duty & the desire to promote the western interests as zealously as the eastern, doing all the good for both portions of our future family which should fall within my power." - Thomas Jefferson

An Anti-Democratic Manifesto Written by Lawyers for the 1%

That's why Jefferson was purposely kept out of the writing of the Constitution.

The point is that the idea that the Union was permanent in the minds of "The Founders" is nonsense.

 

[Biff_Poindexter]

Oh by the way -- are you folks claiming that Virginia abolished slavery before the Civil War? really?

 

[Bootney Lee Farnsworth]

Theft of Federal property.

Agreed. Which is not slavery.

 

[kaz]

Civil War still divides Americans

So after 150 years, the majority of conservatives still believe the Civil War wasn't over slavery?

Why is this? Why do they believe the "States Rights" claim is sufficient enough to shield them from the fact that -- those states rights were those states preserving the right to maintain slavery -- so either way you slice it, the civil war was over slavery --


This is why whenever I see a conservative twisting themselves into pretzels to claim otherwise --- it makes their subsequent claims of not being racist look foolish.


Next time conservatives want to pretend that the Civil War wasn't over slavery -- they better travel back in time and tell all of those southern states to stop telling everyone it was over slavery

If it was over slavery, why did Lincoln offer to enshrine slavery in the Constitution and why did the South turn him down when he did?

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Oh by the way -- are you folks claiming that Virginia abolished slavery before the Civil War? really?

Are you claiming that anybody actually said that? Really?

 

[Mike Dwight]

Thanks Biff! I enjoyed the posts, I started skimming page 15, still, very thorough and enjoyed.

Biff is so pointed and focused on his point! You know who is missing here is John Brown. John Brown the abolitionist who raided Harper's Ferry armory for weapons to deliver to hypothetical and imaginary slave supporters who would somehow overturn slavery in those states. The name of the US Marines colonel in charge of retaking Harper's Ferry was Robert E. Lee. John Brown got most of his revolutionaries killed, no slaves showed up, and the military hanging of John Brown was that of martyrdom to northerners and vicious drawing of knives to southerners. Harper's Ferry would be the town and the site for two major battles of the Civil War, one with Thomas Stonewall Jackson.

I have in my mind Biff, or John Brown, shouting for 17 pages it was about slavery! It was about slavery wasn't it?! See you can't defend, it was about slavery! Yes! In the way you can't possibly mean! Militarist murderers and celebrities were dedicated to ending ways of southern existence because their economic mode was unpleasing to Northerners, in a similar fashion that the election of President Woodrow Wilson was directly about the Triangle Shirtwaist Coat factory fire, that we all hired an Identified Leading Confederate in ideology, manner and religion, to outcry the Northern Banks, Factories, and their economic mode.

 

[Bootney Lee Farnsworth]

Show us where the secession would have happened anyway?

So, you are telling me that, had the issue not been decided by the Civil War, no state would have ever seceded after 1864?

That's a wild presumption.

It's really hard for me to prove that secession would have happened anyway, when we already have precedent that doing so will result in a million deaths. You demand something that cannot be proved or disproved.

 

[Biff_Poindexter]

Oh by the way -- are you folks claiming that Virginia abolished slavery before the Civil War? really?

Are you claiming that anybody actually said that? Really?

Yes, someone said that Virginia wasn't a slave state or as they put it -- Virginia didn't succeed over slavery like the other states did -- either they don't believe Va had slaves or they are admitting the other states did succeed over slaves

but all of those states fought to maintain slavery.

 

[g5000]

Civil War still divides Americans

So after 150 years, the majority of conservatives still believe the Civil War wasn't over slavery?

Why is this? Why do they believe the "States Rights" claim is sufficient enough to shield them from the fact that -- those states rights were those states preserving the right to maintain slavery -- so either way you slice it, the civil war was over slavery --


This is why whenever I see a conservative twisting themselves into pretzels to claim otherwise --- it makes their subsequent claims of not being racist look foolish.


Next time conservatives want to pretend that the Civil War wasn't over slavery -- they better travel back in time and tell all of those southern states to stop telling everyone it was over slavery

If it was over slavery, why did Lincoln offer to enshrine slavery in the Constitution and why did the South turn him down when he did?

The South rejected the Corwin amendment because it banned the expansion of slavery in new territories or states. It only preserved slavery where it currently existed. Which meant the inevitable minority position of the slave states in Congress.

So..yeah. The war was about slavery.

 

[mikegriffith1]

To say that there would have been no war if there had been no slavery does not mean the war was fought over slavery. The federal government and South Carolina nearly came to blows over the tariff in 1833. If there had been no Rwala oil fields in Kuwait, there would have been no Persian Gulf War in 1991, but that does not mean that the Gulf War was "fought over oil."

One must distinguish between a direct cause and an indirect cause. The South fought because it was invaded. If there had been no federal invasion, there would have been no war. The South did not want to take over the federal government--it just wanted to leave the federal government.

Similarly, the direct cause of the Deep South's secession was Abraham Lincoln's election. The indirect cause was slavery.

 

[kaz]

Civil War still divides Americans

So after 150 years, the majority of conservatives still believe the Civil War wasn't over slavery?

Why is this? Why do they believe the "States Rights" claim is sufficient enough to shield them from the fact that -- those states rights were those states preserving the right to maintain slavery -- so either way you slice it, the civil war was over slavery --


This is why whenever I see a conservative twisting themselves into pretzels to claim otherwise --- it makes their subsequent claims of not being racist look foolish.


Next time conservatives want to pretend that the Civil War wasn't over slavery -- they better travel back in time and tell all of those southern states to stop telling everyone it was over slavery

If it was over slavery, why did Lincoln offer to enshrine slavery in the Constitution and why did the South turn him down when he did?

The South rejected the Corwin amendment because it banned the expansion of slavery in new territories or states. Which meant the inevitable minority position of the slave states in Congress forever.

So..yeah. The war was about slavery.

With the Constitutional amendment, it wouldn't have mattered

 

[Bootney Lee Farnsworth]

The South rejected the Corwin amendment because it banned the expansion of slavery in new territories or states.

Reason for war -- secession

reason for secession - slavery

Can we at least agree on that?