"...The question of slavery is merely an incident of the real controversy. It is prominent and important because Slavery is the weapon which the South has used to compel that union of action which has enabled it to control the Government hitherto....The North denounces it partly on moral grounds, and partly because it has been so long made the instrument of their subjugation.
But the real contest is for political power. The great body of the people of the North and West have come to feel that the South has usurped control of the Government long enough--that the real power of the country rests no longer with that section...
...It is the fact of this control...which has roused the people of the Northern States to an effort for its overthrow....They cannot consent to see their interests made permanently subordinate to the interests of a section which has become inferior to them in population, in wealth, and in all the elements of political control. They assert their right, by every legitimate title, to the control of the Government--and it is this for which they are now contending..."
New York Times, 30 May 1860
(my emphasis)
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
And New York can really be trusted? You want to talk about a place that was concerned about losing money with the secession of the Cotton South? Seems that the fact that New York City threatened secession about two weeks after South Carolina seceded was left out. The New York Times was never a friend of the Republicans, just as it isn't in the modern day. But once again, this is an editorial that has been thrown at us here, and it has the inevitable "..." that tend to go with them. I shall have to go out and find the rest of the editorial to see what was inevitably left out. As has been stated before, editorials are opinion, and hold no position as fact. You can only prove through editorials what some people were thinking. The only way to prove that the war was about what you are claiming is to find the words of Lincoln, or Seward, etc, saying that is what it was about. What does an editor in New York or Philadelphia, or Madison, Wisconsin know? They are putting down what they think, not what is fact.
You are right OIJ, the Civil War was not about freeing the black man. You can find everywhere that Northern men were not going to free the slave. However, the reason for the secession of the Southern states was to protect the institution of slavery, as has been shown time and time (and time) again. They broke the Union. As johan_steel and others have said, these men and Lincoln fought to restore the Union, because they knew what was at risk if the Union fell apart. Think about it: if secession had succeeded, the nation that so many of the founding generation fought to create would have fallen apart. There could be three, four, five, or more different nations in the bounds of what is the United States. It would be Europe all over again. Is that what anyone on here who advocates for the rightness of secession wants? To say that Washington, Madison, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Hancock, and all the other men of the Continental Congress were failures? Because Washington said that the survival of the Union was essential to retaining the security and prosperity of this country. Its not an issue of who fought for slaves and who didn't. Its an issue of who was wrong and who was right. Protect the Union, or end up like Europe: a divided territory that can never get along.
__________________ "The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize." George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
And New York can really be trusted? You want to talk about a place that was concerned about losing money with the secession of the Cotton South? Seems that the fact that New York City threatened secession about two weeks after South Carolina seceded was left out. The New York Times was never a friend of the Republicans, just as it isn't in the modern day.
I believe the NYT supported Lincoln in the 1860 election.
Quote:
Originally Posted by J_man
There could be three, four, five, or more different nations in the bounds of what is the United States. It would be Europe all over again. Is that what anyone on here who advocates for the rightness of secession wants?
Who's advocating secession?
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
I believe the NYT supported Lincoln in the 1860 election.
My mistake....it was the Herald that was pro-Democratic
__________________ "The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize." George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
"...The question of slavery is merely an incident of the real controversy. It is prominent and important because Slavery is the weapon which the South has used to compel that union of action which has enabled it to control the Government hitherto....The North denounces it partly on moral grounds, and partly because it has been so long made the instrument of their subjugation.
But the real contest is for political power. The great body of the people of the North and West have come to feel that the South has usurped control of the Government long enough--that the real power of the country rests no longer with that section...
...It is the fact of this control...which has roused the people of the Northern States to an effort for its overthrow....They cannot consent to see their interests made permanently subordinate to the interests of a section which has become inferior to them in population, in wealth, and in all the elements of political control. They assert their right, by every legitimate title, to the control of the Government--and it is this for which they are now contending..."
New York Times, 30 May 1860
(my emphasis)
So your point is that the South was trying to use slavery to subdue and control the North? You agree with what you post?
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
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