Understanding Slavery

Suppose you explain what is stupid about what I said. The leaders of the Confederacy openly proclaimed that their new government was based on slavery and their theory that blacks were inferior. Do you deny that?

 

So, Just-want-peace, are you sympathetic with the Confederacy of the 1860s but still deplore slavery? Maybe you can explain yourself a little. I cannot be sympthetic with such a society. If you can, then please explain.

 

So did Mr. Lincoln do so openly. Do you deny that?

 

The political left in America has apparently decided that American history must be rewritten so that it can be used in the political campaign for reparations for slavery. Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., of Chicago inserted language in a Department of Interior appropriations bill for 2000 that instructed the National Park Service to propagandize about slavery as the sole cause of the war at all Civil War park sites. The Marxist historian Eric Foner has joined forces with Jackson and will assist the National Park Service in its efforts at rewriting history so that it better serves the political agenda of the far left. Congressman Jackson has candidly described this whole effort as "a down payment on reparations." (Foner ought to be quite familiar with the "art" of rewriting politically-correct history. He was the chairman of the committee at Columbia University that awarded the "prestigious" Bancroft Prize in history to Emory University’s Michael A. Bellesiles, author of the anti-Second Amendment book, "Arming America," that turned out to be fraudulent. Bellesiles was forced to resign from Emory and his publisher has ceased publishing the book.)

In order to accommodate the political agenda of the far left, the National Park Service will be required in effect to teach visitors to the national parks that Abraham Lincoln was a liar. Neither Lincoln nor the US Congress at the time ever said that slavery was a cause – let alone the sole cause – of their invasion of the Southern states in 1861. Both Lincoln and the Congress made it perfectly clear to the whole world that they would do all they could to protect Southern slavery as long as the secession movement could be defeated.

On March 2, 1861, the U.S. Senate passed a proposed Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution (which passed the House of Representatives on February 28) that would have prohibited the federal government from ever interfering with slavery in the Southern states. (See U.S. House of Representatives, 106th Congress, 2nd Session, The Constitution of the United States of America: Unratified Amendments, Document No. 106-214, presented by Congressman Henry Hyde (Washington, D.C. U.S. Government Printing Office, January 31, 2000). The proposed amendment read as follows:

ARTICLE THIRTEEN

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.

Two days later, in his First Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln promised to support the amendment even though he believed that the Constitution already prohibited the federal government from interfering with Southern slavery. As he stated:

I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution . . . has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose, not to speak of particular amendments, so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.

This of course was consistent with one of the opening statements of the First Inaugural, where Lincoln quoted himself as saying: "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."

That’s what Lincoln said his invasion of the Southern states was not about. In an August 22, 1862, letter to New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley he explained to the world what the war was about:

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union.

Of course, many Americans at the time, North and South, believed that a military invasion of the Southern states would destroy the union by destroying its voluntary nature. To Lincoln, "saving the Union" meant destroying the secession movement and with it the Jeffersonian political tradition of states’ rights as a check on the tyrannical proclivities of the central government. His war might have "saved" the union geographically, but it destroyed it philosophically as the country became a consolidated empire as opposed to a constitutional republic of sovereign states.

On July 22, 1861, the US Congress issued a "Joint Resolution on the War" that echoed Lincoln’s reasons for the invasion of the Southern states:

Resolved: . . . That this war is not being prosecuted upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those states, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and all laws made in pursuance thereof and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality and rights of the several states unimpaired; and that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease.

By "the established institutions of those states" the Congress was referring to slavery. As with Lincoln, destroying the secession movement took precedence over doing anything about slavery.

On March 2, 1861 – the same day the "first Thirteenth Amendment" passed the U.S. Senate – another constitutional amendment was proposed that would have outlawed secession (See H. Newcomb Morse, "The Foundations and Meaning of Secession," Stetson Law Review, vol. 15, 1986, pp. 419–36). This is very telling, for it proves that Congress believed that secession was in fact constitutional under the Tenth Amendment. It would not have proposed an amendment outlawing secession if the Constitution already prohibited it.

Nor would the Republican Party, which enjoyed a political monopoly after the war, have insisted that the Southern states rewrite their state constitutions to outlaw secession as a condition of being readmitted to the Union. If secession was really unconstitutional there would have been no need to do so.

These facts will never be presented by the National Park Service or by the Lincoln cultists at the Claremont Institute, the Declaration Foundation, and elsewhere. This latter group consists of people who have spent their careers spreading lies about Lincoln and his war in order to support the political agenda of the Republican Party. They are not about to let the truth stand in their way and are hard at work producing "educational" materials that are filled with false but politically correct history.

-www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo37.html

So much for modern day Yankee arguments that they invaded the South over slavery. It was about control, simply about control. The Yankees had it through the use of high tariffs and they didn't want to give up the money they were making off of the South. They couldn't have cared less about slavery.

 

>>>>>So did Mr. Lincoln do so openly. Do you deny that? <<<<<<<<

Lincoln certainly did not proclaim, as the southern leaders did, a new government that gloried in slavery. You have chosen a few remarks that show Lincoln in a bad light in terms of him agreeing with the inferiority of blacks. But when you take the sum total of all he said, he was far more tolerant and liberal about race than the southern leaders. KenH, you only gave one side of his remarks about race. I think even in the same speech from which you extracted your quote, contains some material with the opposite emphasis. Here is a typical comment, after Lincoln made some concessions to the prevailing prejudice:

"I hold that notwithstanding all this *the things that he conceded, such as your quote*, there is no reason in the world why the Negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man. *great applause*

So you see, KenH, you are presenting a distorted picture of Lincoln by your selective quotation. His views were quite different from those of the southern leadership. And the quotations that you presented were almost invariably made as a prelude to arguments in favor of a certain degree of equality for blacks.

 

For anyone who cares to be bothered with historical facts, there is a timeline on the first page of this thread. One fact that may not have been clearly stated is that the United States of America was a slaveholding nation until 8 or 9 months after General Lee's surrender to General Grant at Appomattox. Only after the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment did the United States cease to be a slaveholding nation. It is also an interesting fact that two states that had seceded (AR & LA) adopted anti-slavery constitutions (though admittedly through the influence of pro-Union voters) before any of the remaining slaveholding states of the Union and before the federal government of that Union adopted amendments against slavery.

 

>>>>>>>So much for modern day Yankee arguments that they invaded the South over slavery. It was about control, simply about control. The Yankees had it through the use of high tariffs and they didn't want to give up the money they were making off of the South. They couldn't have cared less about slavery. <<<<<<<<<<

The war came indirectly because of slavery, because the south did not like the hostile attitude of Lincoln and other Republicans towards slavery. Of that there is no doubt. It is all recorded in the history for all to see. It is true that the North did not try immediately to eliminate slavery, but they were deterimined to stop the spread of it. Those who say that the war was caused by states rights or tariffs, are either misinformed or deliberately mistating the historical record, perhaps in an attempt to escape the stigma of slavery. Incidentally, I am not a Yankee, but was born in the south and have a southern accent. I simply like to call a spade a spade and not sugar coat a great moral problem that faced the south and still does to some extent.

 

FINALLY!!! Some middle ground. I am sure willing to admit that the so-called "straw that broke the camels back" leading to the war was the issue of slavery. BUT, through the 1840's and '50's, the U.S. was increasingly changing from an agricultural country to an industrial country. The southern folk felt as if they were being left behind and didn't want for the rest of the country to be ahead in the industrial "race". To hang on to the agricultural side of America was the highest priority for southern farmers.

With increased manufacturing, industry, and most importantly, machinery in the north, the southern economy was beginning to crumble. Once the talk began about freeing slaves, the south saw the final blow to her way of life. Slaves are the ones who built roads, bridges, and most importantly, picked the cotton.(Obviously, almost all white people also did these things.) If the slaves were freed, the southern economy would come crashing down. Now, same as we do today, most people back then wanted to have a good economy. No wonder they were against freeing the slaves.

Now, I am not for slavery. But, I would like to propose that if the issue had not become such a sticking point, that the emancipation would have gone better. I believe that if the south had been allowed to keep slaves for the time, just like other northern states, she could have phased it out much easier. I believe that a different kind of "reconstruction" of the southern economy could have taken place and run much more smoothly. And the brightest point of all, I don't believe there would have been as much animosity from southerners towards blacks and northerners in the following 100 years.

Just like the "bussing" program of the 1960's, the southerners saw outsiders forcing them to do something that they were not yet ready to do.

Of course, we all know that had the civil war not been fought slavery still would have ended. Maybe 10-15 years later, but it would not have cost as many lives.

So, I will admit that ONE of the causes of the war was slavery. I hope everyone else can see that slavery was not the only issue and it was not only in the south. The issue of slavery was just the final act of a feared centralized government.

One more thing. I think my analogy could also be said about events of the present.

The 10 Commandments are removed from schools by the feds. Prayer is removed from schools by the feds. Now the 10 Commandments are removed from a state Supreme Court building by the feds. Eventually, this camel's back is going to break too.

God Bless. Bro. James - a southerner who wants others to understand

 

>>>>>Neither Lincoln nor the US Congress at the time ever said that slavery was a cause – let alone the sole cause – of their invasion of the Southern states in 1861.<<<<<<

If you mean to say that Lincoln never claimed that slavery was the cause of the war, then you are badly mistaken. In point of fact, he said it several times. I am posting here the text of his second inaugural address, in which Lincoln states that "These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war."


Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention, and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it--all sought to avert it. While the inaugeral [sic] address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to dissole [sic] the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether"

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

 

That's kind of a stupid statement, actually. Not only does it equivocate Jesus with the South, but it also says that you are unwilling to see what Truth may be and make the correct changes.

If you were ashamed of your southern roots and upbringing, then more than likely, you would be able to separate yourselves from them. I was raised in the Deep South by parents who were quite southern. I have the blood of several KKK members in my veins. However, I recognize what they did not - that many of these views are antithetical to what Christ stood for. So I have separated myself from them and proudly say that I would have fought against slavery.

 

But I will. I state unequivocally that I wish the CSA was still in existence today. Slavery would have been done away with long, long ago. In fact, the CSA Constitution outlawed the importation of any more slaves and the first veto that President Davis exercised was on a bill that he felt violated the spirit of that prohibition.

I would further state that this current attack on the South by the federal government in the Alabama Ten Commandments monument case is a continuation of what began in 1861. The South has always been an impediment to big government, then and now. God-given human liberty as advocated by the South was an enemy of the Yankee tyrannists in 1861 and still is today of those who want to control what we think, do, and say.

God save the South!

 

The war was almost over by then. That's historical revisionism by Mr. Lincoln.

The slavery issue was a symptom of the struggle between those who believed in a limited national government and those who believed in an almost unbridled central government where the States would be nothing more than administrative units for national policy.

The bad guys won the war and we see what we have today about 140 years later.

God save the South!

 

The Bible Belt is in the South, not in Yankeeland. 'nuff said.

God save the South!

 

It's still a stupid statement. You're equivocating your Southern roots with Christ. That's kinda silly, don't you think?

You had nothing to do with it, but the legacy left behind by your ancestors sure did. Being proud of their actions is the same as endorsing what they stood for.

But, you did say that you are proud of your Southern heritage - and your ancestors did believe all of those things.

Say I was related to Hitler and several other Nazi military leaders. What if I said that I was proud of my German heritage? People would look at me as if I was completely mad.

I'm not denying your honesty. You, like many others on this board, really feel that Southern pride running through you. However, to equivocate that with the sacrifice made by Christ on the cross is demeaning to Jesus, IMO.

 

So now you are likening Jefferson Davis to Adolf Hitler and the CSA to Nazi Germany. You are completely mad.