Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
Thank you. You saved me from having to plod through that dreary document again. Seems they had about the same regard for their constitution as they did for the original.
Ole
I don't about dreary, I mean, it does have an odd familiar ring to it.
Your fingers ain't broke. Search it out. It's there if you want to find it.
Democratic National Convention 1860, page 42, midway down the page: "Mr. Montgomery, of Pennsylvania, moved to lay Mr. Bigier's [Bigler] motion on the table. He did not regard as a compromise, a proposition for a Congressional slave code and the reopening of the African slave trade."
Unionblue
I believe this is only Montgomery's interpretation of Bigler's (also of PA) resolution-
opening all territories to those that own slaves.
(To Montgomery, apparently, opening the territories to slavery means a reopening of the African slave trade.)
(Please read the previous page (41) for Bigler's resolution.)
~~~
There is NO proposal at this convention by any Southerner to reopen the trade...
But I see by the thread you started, Trice has more than answered the idea that there were those who wished to reopen the African Slave Trade.
I won't belabor the point, because it did happen, whether you wish to believe it or not.
Unionblue
That's not the point...
...the point is..that there are some here...as well as those of 1860...
claiming there was a significant movement in the South to reopen the trade...
...there wasn't.
~
Remember, it was an Election year-
Senator Brown of Mississippi, 1860-
"It is mere mockery for gentlemen to pretend that they think the southern people are desirous of reopening the African slave trade...
Those in the southern States in favor of reopening this traffic are a mere handful compared with the great mass of the people...."
"Gentlemen may make some political capital at home out of this question of the African slave trade, but it is humbug capital; it is a kind of capital which no statesman ought be proud of."
Read the whole article as I think it answers a lot of the supposed improvements you seem to think the CSA constitution had.
I particularly liked the last paragraph.
"When the last Confederate army in the field, Joseph Johnston's ragged remnants in North Carolina, surrendered to U.S. General William Sherman, Jefferson Davis asked Confederate Attorney General George Davis' opinion on whether he should ratify the capitulation agreement.
Davis answered, "desperate circumstances override constitutional questions."
And that, said Currie, summarizes the history of Confederate constitutional interpretation.
Unionblue
Interesting site. The last quote is particularly interesting, because Jefferson Davis was a very strict constructionalist on the Confederate Constitution, vetoing more bills than any US President ever had to that point, usually on strict constructionalist grounds about language. Picky, you might say. Yet it seems by 1865 even he was desperate enough to bend the rules.
You asked, after reading Wild Rose's post, if there was any evidence of reopening the African Slave Trade at the Democratic National Convention of 1860 and during the Constitutional Convention in Montgomery, Alabama.
I provided the historical evidence that there was.
Trice has provided historical evidence as to the why it did not get approved.
Now you know.
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
You asked, after reading Wild Rose's post, if there was any evidence of reopening the African Slave Trade at the Democratic National Convention of 1860 and during the Constitutional Convention in Montgomery, Alabama.
I provided the historical evidence that there was.
Trice has provided historical evidence as to the why it did not get approved.
Now you know.
Unionblue
My question was addressed to you-
"Yes, Unionblue......Where is that?.....We're waiting..."
...in reference to your post-
Quote:
Originally Posted by unionblue
Wild_Rose,
You have never read for the call to reopen the slave trade at the Democratic National Convention in 1860? That you never knew that South Carolina called for the reopening of the slave trade?
Sincerely,
Unionblue
What you wrote in this post is simply not true.
...In fact the page you reference...
...is the only place the phrase "slave trade" even appears in the entire record of the convention...
I will not admit that I am wrong because, in fact, I am not.
I know that frustrates you, but the evidence is there that part of the reason for the split of the Democratic party is because there were those who were advocating a 'proposition of reopening of the African slave trade' and a federal slave code. The objection to both is found in the record of the convention. I didn't make this up, it is there in black and white for those who can read. It wasn't placed there out of the blue.
And South Carolina did not want the slave trade outlawed in the Confederate Constitution. It's there, why don't you just believe your own eyes?
Let us look at the passage I found in the record of the Democratic Convention of 1860.
"Mr. Montgomery, of Pennsylvania, moved to lay Mr. Bigier's motion on the table. He did not regard as a compromise, a proposition for a Congressional slave code and the reopening of the African slave trade."
Now, lets break down the important part of the above passage.
'Proposition', i.e., a subject for analysis or discussion. Someone (Bigier or Bigler) wanted to discuss a Congressional slave code AND the reopening of the African slave trade.
'Reopening', i.e., to open or take up again; to start over: RESUME.
'African,' i.e., Of or relating to Africa or any of its people and languages. A person born or living in Africa. A member of one of the indigenous peoples of Africa.
'Slave,' i.e., one bound in servitude to a person or household as an insturment of labor.
'Trade,' i.e., the business of buying and selling commodities, in this case, human beings.
I do not get where the above is that hard to understand or to believe it can be misconstrued or interpreted to mean something else. Are you of the opinion that this statement evolved in a perfect vacum? That Montgomery of PA had a brain cramp and blurted this out on the convention floor? That Bigier (or Bigler) did not discuss or bring up the idea of reopening the African slave trade while in committee? That it was not talked about among other delegates?
There was a call (i.e., to bring to action or under consideration) to reopen the African slave trade at the Democratic National Convention of 1860. Just because it consists of one recorded line in that document does not make it any less true. You seem to have a problem with my statement to Wild Rose, not that there wasn't such an action called for. Do you deny the statement was printed into the convention record or just the way I phrase it to Wild Rose?
Again, it is my opinion that I have not given a wrong statement. It is my belief you are just having a hard time accepting my phrasing of it as a proven, historical fact.
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
Scroll down the pages til you get to 'Developing Conflict over American Slavery and there you will find a sentence beginning, "They resolved to reopen the African slave trade...In Louisiana, leading citizens engaged in a scheme for legalizing the traffic, under the guise of what they called the African Labor-supply Association, of which James B. DeBow, editor of De Bow's Review, published in New Orleans, was president. Read on from there and decide if there was no such movement.
Scroll down to the section entitled, '5. The Question of Re-Opening the African Slave Trade.
There were other sites of interest, many of them.
Enjoy,
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
I've run across a site that sets out in clearly-readable form each textual difference between the U.S. Constitution and the Confederate Constitution.
I have briefly scanned the site and it looks accurate. Ignore the silly URL.
If the site has been mentioned before, apologies.
The Constitution of the Confederate States of the America and the Constitution of the United States of America compared clause-by-clause and side-by-side:
What an amazing find. Bookmarked same. Will revel in the information sometime later. Many thanks!
Ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
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