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.
Your latest post is quite exceptionally interesting. Thank you for that.
You hit the nail on the head when you observe that "the Republican Party managed to blend personal and sectional interests with "morality" so well that it became the most potent political force in the nation." In their early years the Republicans demonstrated a degree of sophistication (and cynicism) which would put most modern politicians to shame. 150 years later people are still repeating (and believing) the platitudes which Republicans coined in the 1850s.
Warm beer? Well, I can see that it would come as a shock if you did not know of its existence before tasting it. North Americans tend to believe that all beer is cold, pale & gassy, but the great beer-producing nations of Europe have always produced dark ales as well as lager beers. It's not unique to Britain: you can get terrific dark beers in Belgium, Germany and the Czech Republic. Personally, I like both kinds. But I really cannot stand American beer. It is weak and tasteless...positively unpleasant. I suppose a 12 year-old might like it, but it's not what I would call "a man's drink". I'm not too well-versed on Canadian beer, although I remember enjoying bottled Molson many years ago.
They will still be telling the story of your asking for ice in your beer many years from now. Trust me!
Dawna, I'm tempted to agre largely w/ your views of the politics of the era... POliticians started it and the bastards failed to do the honorable thing and die for their ideals.
As to the warm beer... thats the brits, though I have to agree w/ you; I can't imagine a warm Bass Ale.
Warm beer and cold pizza, the breakfast of champions. THough I learned a long time ago: first sniff the beer cans contents to make certain some cowboy hasn't opted to use it as a spitoon and secondly check for cigarette buts. Actually forget it, thats why God created orange juice... nothing quite like a screwdriver first thing in the morning to cure a hangover.
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
I confess to having taken a walk on the wild side and completely immersed myself in 19th century politics, and what could be more fascinating? The Republican administration at the time of the Civil War seemed to have set a precedence for trashing civil liberties.
I survive my Canadian winters by thoughts of standing in a nice cool stream (on the horse) on a hot summer's day, with an ice cold beer in one hand - you can't go wrong with a Molson's Canadian! I'm sure I would be in a coma after downing one of the heartier European ales but then again I'm not a man.
Shane, I invite you to try left over Chinese food and a nice cold coke - now that's a breakfast of Champions!
Beer; not just a breakfast drink. Agree that there's nothing quite so nice to look forward to as a cool stream, a cold beer, and (skip the horse) a fish pole.
Politicians then were a lot like politicians now. It's power and winning. North, South, Middle, West, East ... made and makes no difference And there are no benevolent despots.
Will go now and crack a cold one while contemplating the barbarism of warm stout.
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
Albert Gallatin Brown, Senator from Mississippi leads off the demand for a Federal slave code for the territories.
"The Supreme Court in the celebrated Dred Scott case, declared that slaveholders had the same right to carry their slave property to the territories, that any other citizen from any other state had to carry any other kind of property. The venerable Chief Justice declared, further, that the whole duty of this government toward slave property was to protect it--to protect it after we arrived in a territory. We are entitled to adequate protection, sufficient protection. The mere naked Constitution does not afford that kind of protection which the nature of slave property requires. The Supreme Court has decided that we have the right to call upon somebody to give us that protection, and to make it adequate. Now, sir, upon whom am I to call? According to the doctrine of congressional non-intervention, our first call is upon the territorial legislature. But if the territorial legislature refuses, then what am I to do? Am I to abandon my rights, rights guaranteed by the Constitution, by the Constitution as expounded by the Supreme Court? No, sir, when the territorial legislature refuses protection for my slave property, as the Senator from Illinois claims it has the authority to do so, I mean to come to Congress for a remedy. I mean to remind you, Senators, that the territorial legislature is your creature--you breathed it into existence--and yet your creature is not obeying the Constitution, is denying me rights guaranteed by the sacred charter of our liberties as expounded by the highest judicial tribunal in the land. I mean to come to you and ask you, Senators, to grant me the protection of my slave property through congressional legislation. That is the remedy I mean to seek. And in view of the approaching presidential contest, I'm curious to know what response I am to have to my request. What will be your response, Senators from the North? I've said, and say again, that when our constitutional rights are denied us, we ought to retire from the Union. True manhood requires it. Why should we remain in it?"
Question: Where does it state in the US Constitution that slaves are property?
Sincerely,
Unionblue
(Message edited by Unionblue on January 19, 2005)
__________________ "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
From the book The Slaveholding Republic, An Account of the United States Government's Relations to Slavery, by Don E. Fehrenbacher.
Chapter 9, Slavery In The Federal Territories, page 281, states in reference to the Dred Scott decision and the possible expansion of slavery to the free states:
"The constitutionalization of the issue of slavery in the territories had been developing for at least a decade. It is understandable that rational people might have expected this ideological theorizing to continue until slavery became in fact a national institution.
Typical of Republican newspapers, the Chicago Tribune warned that slaves might soon be bought and sold on the streets of Chicago. Fear of the decision's gross exulation of the slaveholder's property rights led the Indianapolis State Journal to ask: "Can a slaveholder, defying our State Constitution, bring his slaves here in Indiana and hold them?" Such concerns were not outlandish. A review of the course of American history up to that point demonstrated that the federal government had gradually become a tool of the proslavery interest. The Dred Scott decision especially evidenced this, and by 1858 the Buchanan adminstration itself would be revealed as uncritically proslavery. These facts encouraged speculation that subsequent court actions, enforced by federal officials, might guarantee slaveholders sojourning rights in free states or invalidate northern state laws freeing slaves illegally held there. The Dred Scott decision, having flirted with the concept of substantive due process of law in Taney's own opinion, could readily be expanded to uphold a broadening principle of vested property rights so far as slavery's existence in the northern states themselves were concerned. President Buchanan himself encouraged northern paranoia by suggesting that the Dred Scott decision informed him that even if Kansas eventually abolished slavery, any slaves already there would remain in perpetual servitude even after Kansas became a free state. Historian Kenneth Stampp has written: "His novel doctrine denied the right of any territory where slaveholders had chosen to settle to become entirely a free state regardless of the wishes of the majority."
Upon further reading concerning the South's aggressive stance on securing a federal slave code and the Dred Scott decision, it seems more than apparent to me that the South would not be satisfied until slavery was legal in the entire nation, north and south, let alone just the territories.
Unionblue
(Message edited by Unionblue on January 20, 2005)
__________________ "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
Senator Brown has a good point - is the federal government and the union of States governed and bound by the Constitution or not? The process established and dictated by the Constitution was followed, and the Constitutional ruling was made. The refusal by some members of the Union to abide by it led directly to war.
Question: Where does it state in the US Constitution that slaves are property?
Good question.
I would guess that one can find it right after the place that declares that horses and land and barns can be owned by citizens of the various States, and immediately preceding the place that states how much money a citizen of the various States can earn in a year.
Neil, with all due respect, this question is a beautiful illustration of the fundamental problem here.
It would appear that Hal has agreed that Slavery was <u>THE</u> fundamental cause of the War... or am I missing something in his post #351 conclusion? It would appear judicial activism is not new to the 21st century.
Apparently, the premise that a human being could be or should be property like a horse or barn is the fundamental issue. Some believe it and support those who did in the past; others see it as a flaw of character that cannot be overlooked.
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
Upon further reading concerning the South's aggressive stance on securing a federal slave code and the Dred Scott decision, it seems more than apparent to me that the South would not be satisfied until slavery was legal in the entire nation, north and south, let alone just the territories.
That's a revealing comment.
Let's see, we have:
"...Fear..."
"...rational people might have expected ..."
"...concerns were not outlandish..."
"...These facts encouraged speculation..."
"...northern paranoia..."
I would encourage you to give less credence to the "fear," "speculation," "concerns," and "paranoia" of the North when making judgments on the South's "aggressive" intentions.
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