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.
This is it in a nutshell. Neil, this is why your lecture is flawed. These men did exist. There are documents to prove it.
We're still confusing why men fought and the cause of the war. Two different things.
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
We're still confusing why men fought and the cause of the war. Two different things.
ole
General, Sir, I beg to differ. What caused the war to be created as an activity, mostly a desire by southern businessman to gain territory in the west under a general law that would permit slave labor, had nothing, in many cases, to do with the reason the soldiers were in the field. The war itself was what caused the war as far as the foot soldier, many cavs too, was concerned. Folks were getting killed and hogs were vanishing from the landscape. That started round two. Many a southern man heard the bell and responded with no help or inspiration from the slave issue.
__________________ Ancestors in US Army: 13th TN Cav; 10th TN Cav; 3rd NC Inf
Ancestors in CSA Army: 48th VA; 63rd VA, 5th NC Cav; 37th NC
Wife and Grandson's CSA: 15th AL, 51st GA, 41st TN; 36th TN; GA Mil 1197 Dist
We're on the same page, Larry, but one of us is speaking in a different language. Cause of war does not equal reasons for fighting.
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
General, Sir, I beg to differ. What caused the war to be created as an activity, mostly a desire by southern businessman to gain territory in the west under a general law that would permit slave labor, had nothing, in many cases, to do with the reason the soldiers were in the field. The war itself was what caused the war as far as the foot soldier, many cavs too, was concerned. Folks were getting killed and hogs were vanishing from the landscape. That started round two. Many a southern man heard the bell and responded with no help or inspiration from the slave issue.
Uhhh. Hold up a second. Let's get President Davis to explain this to you, again...
SLAVERY was not only 'already permitted' out West, under the common property of the Constitution, but bound by the officers and executives of that august document to uphold the ends of the now-minority states represented by it.
In short, the newly-baked Republican Northern Left
had an obligation to protect Southern slave property, and not aggrandize themselves into PROVOKING A WAR with the South, for the purposes of finally getting to SHOOT AT THE SOUTH... These people, as Senator Davis shows here, have always not only sided with the terrorists but actually WERE THE terrorists. This is why, LONG BEFORE SUMTER, EVERYONE is talking of a war... THAT THE NORTH WILL SURELY COMMENCE, as it is its plan all along.
READ. JUST... READ IT.
(In what follows, emphasis is mine, where it isn't Davis'...)
The popular movement in the South was tending steadily [pg 60] and rapidly toward the secession of those known as "planting States"; yet, when Congress assembled on December 3, 1860 the representatives of the people of all those States took their seats in the House, and they were all represented in the Senate, except South Carolina, whose Senators had tendered their resignation to the Governor immediately on the announcement of the result of the Presidential election. Hopes were still cherished that the Northern leaders would appreciate the impending peril, would cease to treat the warnings, so often given, as idle threats, would refrain from the bravado, so often and so unwisely indulged, of ability "to whip the South" in thirty, sixty, or ninety days, and would address themselves to the more manly purpose of devising means to allay the indignation, and quiet the apprehensions, whether well, founded or not, of their Southern brethren. But the debates of that session manifest, on the contrary, the arrogance of a triumphant party, and the determination to reap to the uttermost the full harvest of a party victory.
Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky, the oldest and one of the most honored members of the Senate,20 introduced into that body a joint resolution proposing certain amendments to the Constitution—among them the restoration and incorporation into the Constitution of the geographical line of the Missouri Compromise, with other provisions, which it was hoped might be accepted as the basis for an adjustment of the difficulties rapidly hurrying the Union to disruption. But the earnest appeals of that venerable statesman were unheeded by Senators of the so-called Republican party. Action upon his proposition was postponed from time to time, on one pretext or another, until the last day of the session—when seven States had already withdrawn from the Union and established a confederation of their own—and it was then defeated by a majority of one vote.2
The people of the United States now had four rival tickets [pg 51] presented to them by as many contending parties, whose respective position and principles on the great and absorbing question at issue may be briefly recapitulated as follows:
1. The "Constitutional-Union" Party, as it was now termed, led by Messrs. Bell and Everett, which ignored the territorial controversy altogether, and contented itself, as above stated, with a simple declaration of adherence to "the Constitution, the Union, and the enforcement of the laws."
2. The party of "popular sovereignty," headed by Douglas and Johnson, who affirmed the right of the people of the Territories, in their territorial condition, to determine their own organic institutions, independently of the control of Congress; denying the power or duty of Congress to protect the persons or property of individuals or minorities in such Territories against the action of majorities.
3. The State-Rights party, supporting Breckinridge and Lane, who held that the Territories were open to citizens of all the States, with their property, without any inequality or discrimination, and that it was the duty of the General Government to protect both persons and property from aggression in the Territories subject to its control. At the same time they admitted and asserted the right of the people of a Territory, on emerging from their territorial condition to that of a State, to determine what should then be their domestic institutions, as well as all other questions of personal or proprietary right, without interference by Congress, and subject only to the limitations and restrictions prescribed by the Constitution of the United States.
4. The so-called "Republicans," presenting the names of Lincoln and Hamlin, who held, in the language of one of their leaders,18 that "slavery can exist only by virtue of municipal law"; that there was "no law for it in the Territories, and no power to enact one"; and that Congress was "bound to prohibit it in or exclude it from any and every Federal Territory." In other words, they asserted the right and duty of Congress to exclude the citizens of half the States of the Union from the territory belonging in common to all, unless on condition of the [pg 52] sacrifice or abandonment of their property recognized by the Constitution—indeed, of the only species of their property distinctly and specifically recognized as such by that instrument.
On the vital question underlying the whole controversy—that is, whether the Federal Government should be a Government of the whole for the benefit of all its equal members, or (if it should continue to exist at all) a sectional Government for the benefit of a part—the first three of the parties above described were in substantial accord as against the fourth. If they could or would have acted unitedly, they, could certainly have carried the election, and averted the catastrophe which followed. Nor were efforts wanting to effect such a union.
President Buchanan was in the last year of his administration. His freedom from sectional asperity, his long life in the public service, and his peace-loving and conciliatory character, were all guarantees against his precipitating a conflict between the Federal Government and any of the States; but the feeble power that he possessed in the closing months of his term to mold the policy of the future was painfully evident. Like all who had intelligently and impartially studied the history of the formation of the Constitution, he held that the Federal Government had no rightful power to coerce a State. Like the sages [pg 55] and patriots who had preceded him in the high office that he filled, he believed that "our Union rests upon public opinion, and can never by cemented by the blood of its citizens shed in civil war. If it can not live in the affections of the people, it must one day perish. Congress may possess many means of preserving it by conciliation, but the sword was not placed in their hand to preserve it by force."—(Message of December 3, 1860.)
In short, the South was no longer a part of a Union protected by the original Constitution and the general government. The Second party 'disrupters' had gained power, and nothing could MAKE them follow the laws and precedences...
So they provoked Secession, provoked armed combat, and finished the change to the government that would give assure the Left on an easier time with its socialist policies, and forever end the hope that such a party could ever be destroyed through sound thinking and sane voting by the people...
Nothing further, your honor.
The Defense Rests. Call your next witness.
Last edited by ole; 07-09-2008 at 04:37 PM.
Reason: Slightly edited for off-topic remarks.
Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky, the oldest and one of the most honored members of the Senate,20 introduced into that body a joint resolution proposing certain amendments to the Constitution—among them the restoration and incorporation into the Constitution of the geographical line of the Missouri Compromise, with other provisions, which it was hoped might be accepted as the basis for an adjustment of the difficulties rapidly hurrying the Union to disruption. But the earnest appeals of that venerable statesman were unheeded by Senators of the so-called Republican party. Action upon his proposition was postponed from time to time, on one pretext or another, until the last day of the session—when seven States had already withdrawn from the Union and established a confederation of their own—and it was then defeated by a majority of one vote.2
The Defense Rests. Call your next witness.
The fact is the Crittenden Compromise consisted of six proposed Constitutional amendments and not simply acts of Congress. One would allow slavery to continue in the South forever, another would allow slavery into territories south of the 36/30 line, and another would not allow for any change to these amendments. If you think the Northern States would have ratified these six amendments you and your hero, Davis, are sadly mistaken.
Davis conveniently forgot that it was defeated by a much larger margin in the House.
"it failed in the House of Representatives in Jan., 1861, by a vote of 113 to 80 and in the Senate in March by a vote of 20 to 19."
__________________ "Those who forget to remember the past are condemned to repeat it", George Santayana.
If the defense rests upon the testimony of an apologist with a clear agenda, the defense has a very shaky argument.
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
The fact is the Crittenden Compromise consisted of six proposed Constitutional amendments and not simply acts of Congress. One would allow slavery to continue in the South forever, another would allow slavery into territories south of the 36/30 line, and another would not allow for any change to these amendments. If you think the Northern States would have ratified these six amendments you and your hero, Davis, are sadly mistaken.
Davis conveniently forgot that it was defeated by a much larger margin in the House.
"it failed in the House of Representatives in Jan., 1861, by a vote of 113 to 80 and in the Senate in March by a vote of 20 to 19."
(Didn't the Left have a deathlock on the House by that time?).
The Northern states had one thing in mind - REVERSING THE CAUSE OF THE ORIGINAL AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Forming an empire and getting wealthy on the weakness of some nonsense called a FREE COUNTRY... and making it a LAND OF OPPORTUNITY... for THOSE WHO CONQUER.
TAKING LITERAL CONTROL OF EVERYTHING IN SIGHT.
SLAVERY was ALREADY ALLOWED in common territorial property, seeing it was Constitutionally protected...
To deny this was the result of a hostile un-Constitutional takeover, and if the North is allowed to violate here, they will stop at nothing....
Until we are shooting at each other. Like we are right now...
Have the poor go about screeching something about FREEDOM and patriotism, and then being allowed to die for a change in this system of government, making it eternally top-heavy... and a federal empire.
And stealing everything that wasn't nailed down, and a lot that actually WAS...
The North were getting a whole lot more out of the negro slaves than the South ever did!!!!
Like Sumter...
but the disguise is 'exceeding thin and airy'... It 'won't scour'! And a whole lot of other Lincolnisms...
As much as I'd have liked to delete the previous posts, Beowulf did stay within the bounds. Fortunately, he's dug his own hole and has demonstrated that he has nothing of substance to say. I don't get to delete ignorance of facts, only the off-side rants. And for that, I apologize.
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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