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 again, Beowulf, but I do not accept your amendment of the question - if not slavery, what specifically was the Federal government doing to that constituted oppression of the liberty of the Southerners.
I understand that the South opposed the tariffs. But the nullification crisis was about the tariffs, too, and that was not enough to cause the secession of any buy South Carolina, apparently. And if its about taxes in the form of tariff's you think they would have gone into battle under the banner of "oppressive taxes" not "state's rights." It does not seem to me that tariffs are a state's rights issue since they are expressly a matter for the Federal government under the Constitution.
So I ask again: I hear, "It was not about slavery, it was about state's rights." What rights? What oppression?
I still do not believe I have an answer.
Why don't you look at what is going on right now, for an answer?
The Federal government rules as sovereign (paraphrased Jefferson Davis quote) and the states rights are extinct.
The House divided against itself is still standing, still divided, and still against itself!
Whatever they or anyone else claimed the war was over, it was over the formation of the Second party, and its prominent rise to power.
And with it, the Rise of a Federal Monarchy.
The destruction of state autonomy, and the right to pull out of a Federal dictatorship ruled by a majority.
And a S-t-a-t-e-s R-i--g-h--t not to have to submit to that.
They PULLED OUT OVER SOMETHING BIG, and it was a whole lot bigger than simple 'Slavery'!
I believe it was to be free of Liberal attitudes, as an art form!
(I can see where they were coming from!)
Beowulf
__________________ If the South accepted Sectional Left Wing Republican Rule, their property would be devalued, by being outlawed unconstitutionally in the territories, and suffer terrorism by Brown's mob ,... their economy would be in shambles... The effect is that the South is not any longer an equal part of the Union.
If the South tried to gain independence from these Left wing Republicans, the North will destroy them all... and curse their memory for all eternity....
The south had things pretty much their way for the better part of 80 years. And they frittered it away with their increasingly single-minded fixation on their culture, refinement, and slavery.
While the north was industrializing and spreading, and immigrants poured in to take the jobs, the south covered its collective turned-up nose at the tackiness of it all. And then the northwestern territories became states -- each with two more senators. Slowly but surely, the 3/5 rule couldn't keep pace with the north's growing power in the house. And then it appeared that the south would be soon losing power in the senate.
So the southern states' right to political sway may be the rights you're looking for.
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
I wanted to know what exactly was a State Right because when I was in school I was taught that the Constitution gave us individual rights starting with the Bill of Rights then corresponding amendments.
I got out the Constitution and fumbled through it and found no Bill of Rights for States but I did not give up. I turned each page over and searched it front and back had no luck so I went on and looked for small print and even for any asterisks, no luck. I just could not find any Bill of Rights or amendments about State Rights.
I knew in the Constitutions wording it implies that States have powers and prerogatives but nothing about rights.
So before, I return my Constitution back and get my money back for having no Bill of Rights for States. I want to have my story right when I ask the store back for my money.
I have a question: Can anyone list me the rights in the Constitution that states have? I not talking about powers or prerogatives but cold hard rights!!
I would appreciate anyone's help!
Beowulfie!!,
Did you not read this? There are no such thing as States Rights just read the Constitution for you must believe in the Constitution for your right wing logic to work. Not one word on States Rights, comrade!?
__________________
"States Rights are about States Wrongs" - Jesse Jackson
Sense I could not find any Bill of Rights in the Constitution for States. I went on and dug briefly into the history of States Rights and what did I find!
States rights started with "good intention" when Jefferson and Madison were trying to nullify the Alien Sedition Act of 1798. They wanted to use the concept of States Rights to nullify the Alien Sedition Act in the KY. & VA. Resolution.
A WARNING: "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions"
Yes, Jefferson and Madison laid the groundwork that would be the a "Battle Cry" that starts the Civil War..
Lets move ahead Calhoune brings up States Rights again to justify Slavery and Secession. The southern states latch on, which leads to Civil War.
You would think States Rights would die with the south losing the Civil War but it raise it ugly head in a court ruling Plessy vs Ferguson the "separate but equal" ruling, which led to the "Jim Crow" south and segregation.
Move into the 20th century and the forces of good fight back with "civil rights" and the evil south fights back with States Rights. In the end States Rights is not slay-en but is caged freeing Black America from segregation and oppression.
SEE! What the "good intentions" of Jefferson and Madison lead to for our nation. It lead to Civil War and repression of Black America.
SEE! How "good intentions" was Hi-Jack by evil.
States Rights is a political slogan for states and their citizens to hide behind to justify their ethocentic behaviors.
Beowulfie!!,
States Rights is nothing more then a Right Wing slogan. It does not truly exist your following a false political doctrine.
Just Read!
__________________
"States Rights are about States Wrongs" - Jesse Jackson
So the southern states' right to political sway may be the rights you're looking for.
ole
There is much truth in what you say but was it worth going to war for. I do not understand what the southern leaders feared so bad. War in the name of a few more votes in the Senate and House, it insanity but the south did chose war.
Why did the South feel the North was being repressive towards them?
An answer it needed.
__________________
"States Rights are about States Wrongs" - Jesse Jackson
Two secondary economic issues were the tariff and internal improvements, but they alone could not have caused the Civil War.
Many Southerners complained about the tariff when it ceased being a revenue tariff and became a protective tariff.
Many Southerners despised the idea of internal improvements;(canals, roads, bridges, and railroads), as unnecessary in the South while helping the North and West, and were unconstitutional due to federal funding.
Southerners are human beings, and their political positions on economic issues were like most people's positions: they loved the ones that benefitted them and they hated the ones that didn't.
So, for example, Louisiana politicians always supported tariffs that kept sugar prices high -- because Louisiana is the ONLY state in the continental US where sugar cane can be grown commercially to compete with places like Cuba, etc. The 2 cent/pound tariff on sugar was also an important factor in our rather scandolous takeover of Hawaii in the 1890s. The rest of the nation generally thought of the tax on sugar imports the same way the South claimed to feel about .
On internal improvements: the South was intimately involved in the evolution of that system. Henry Clay of Kentucky was the biggest promoter of it (see the "American System"). Southerners benefitted from it, particularly in the new states like Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas. Try figuring out sometime why there was a US Navy yard built in Memphis< TN in the 1840s. The Secretary of the Navy din't want it; neither did his highest ranking officers want it. They didn't even want the yard that was built in New Orleans, believing Pensacola was what they should have. But somehow Memphis got one when the highest ranking Navy officer who favored it was a Lieutenant named Mallory -- who later became a fairly well-known Confederate.
What you'll actually find if you look at this is that Southerners were greatly in favor of "internal improvements" like Federal forts for coastal defense, or harbor dredging. That they wanted their "fair share" of the Mail Packet business when Congress set up lines to Europe and Asia -- and got more than they should have, IMHO. In short, they acted just like politicians do today, favoring spending in their home districts, for purposes that suited them -- and opposed all that spending away from their home states.
If you like irony, realize that when Andy Jackson cracked down on "internal improvements" projects, the first one he picked was in the South, cancelling a road project.
And the next time someone tells you the tariff was no longer about revenue and was now a "protective tariff", realize that the US essentially only had TWO sources of income in the late 1850s: the tariff on imports and the sale of public lands.
Now, Federal sales of lands north of the Mason-Dixon Line generally went for 3 times the price/acre of those South of it. While not necessarily a base for a final judgement, it is clear that if there was a North/South bias there, it was in favor of "the North" paying a larger share of the Federal income burden.
That leaves the tariff as a source of revenue. If "the South" wants to lower it, they need to either a) produce a new source of revenue or b) reduce spending.
Did they do either? Heck, no. The Southern-dominated Buchanan administration presided over a mammoth fiscal disaster from 1857-1860. The Federal debt quadrupled in four years. From a budget surplus when Buchanan arrived and substantial cash in the Treasury, we change to Lincoln arriving to an empty Treasury, banks refusing to loan the Federal government money, rising rates on borrowings, and a very large annual budget deficit.
In short, Southern politicians acted just as foolishly and just as graspingly, concerned far more with their local politics than the good of the nation as the ones we complain about in our own lives. All the pious posturing about tariffs and internal improvements is largely a bunch of hooey. They wanted what would favor them, and opposed what would favor someone else, and they were largely very short-sighted men, as politicians so often are. Toss all this out as the bilge-water it is when you hear it.
Now tariffs may have been "protective" in some instances -- but the tariffs of the late 1850s were widely regarded as the lowest of any major nation and
practically equivalent to "free trade" in that era. Southern complaints about them were a bunch of hot air.
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.
There is much truth in what you say but was it worth going to war for. I do not understand what the southern leaders feared so bad. War in the name of a few more votes in the Senate and House, it insanity but the south did chose war.
Largely because they feared a Repulican controlled Congress would set the country on the road to eventual emancipation. They knew very well that Lincoln could do nothing overtly, nor would he act outside the Constitution. They felt they had a right to a better guarantee.
Quote:
Why did the South feel the North was being repressive towards them?
The official reasons cite failure to return a satisfactory percentage of Fugitive Slaves and various wanted types. Although it is true that the slave-catchers might have been given more cooperation, quite a sizeable percentage were caught and returned -- just not all of them.
And there's the famous whine about the vocal abolitionists who wouldn't leave them alone. And the Texas twin complaints about government costs and the lack of adequate troops to help protect against the Comanche and banditos.
Most of the complaints were good propaganda for the literate -- like the more noble sounding "state's rights."
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
Did you not read this? There are no such thing as States Rights just read the Constitution for you must believe in the Constitution for your right wing logic to work. Not one word on States Rights, comrade!?
Before you begin foaming at the mouth like any good rabid modern liberal, consider:
ALL POWERS NOT GRANTED THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ARE RETAINED BY THE STATES!
THAT IS ALL THE "STATES RIGHTS" ANY OF US NEED, O COLLECTIVIST ONE!
So, where, exactly, do the states become slaves of Washington City, exactly? Chapter and bloody verse, please!
(in other words, when does ONE STATE give up its autonomy to ALL THE REST OF THEM, in Congress assembled?)
Peace Out, Man!
Beowulf
__________________ If the South accepted Sectional Left Wing Republican Rule, their property would be devalued, by being outlawed unconstitutionally in the territories, and suffer terrorism by Brown's mob ,... their economy would be in shambles... The effect is that the South is not any longer an equal part of the Union.
If the South tried to gain independence from these Left wing Republicans, the North will destroy them all... and curse their memory for all eternity....
(in other words, when does ONE STATE give up its autonomy to ALL THE REST OF THEM, in Congress assembled?)
If law passes both houses by the requisite majorities and the president signs it, all states are bound to abide by it. If a Constitutional Amendment is passed and ratified by the people of a requisite majority of the states, all states are bound to abide by it.
Quote:
ALL POWERS NOT GRANTED THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ARE RETAINED BY THE STATES!
When did secession become a power?
Quote:
So, where, exactly, do the states become slaves of Washington City, exactly? Chapter and bloody verse, please!
Too silly for an answer.
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
Before you begin foaming at the mouth like any good rabid modern liberal, consider:
ALL POWERS NOT GRANTED THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ARE RETAINED BY THE STATES!
THAT IS ALL THE "STATES RIGHTS" ANY OF US NEED, O COLLECTIVIST ONE!
Peace Out, Man!
Beowulf
Beowulfie,
If you new the basics of Constitutional Law, powers and prerogatives are not Rights. The Constitution has no States Rights written into so; the argument that Jefferson and Madison started decades ago was philosophical.
Jefferson and Madison philosophical argument was usurped by Calhoun and perverted into an ethnocentric perversion.
Beowulfie you and many others have excepted Calhoun's
perversion as truth and sadly it led to the Civil War and later to segregation.
States Rights are perversion of an Ideal!
So comrade come back form the Dark side.
__________________
"States Rights are about States Wrongs" - Jesse Jackson
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