Colonel Richard Henry Lee On Why We Fought.

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Guaranteed by the US Constitution, when enacted, and still on the books in 1865.

Debatable. It was believed so, but if so why the 2 fugitive slaves laws plus a batch of SCOTUS decisions. The trend in legal thought was maybe not to h__l no in mid 19th century US.

The bigger issue is reciprocity, where states will enforce other States' laws, that is guaranteed in the Constitution, but broke down over slavery.
 
No, but I actually think that if the war could have been delayed a few more decades, mechanization of agriculture and world opinion would have seen the South move from bondage to peonage to eventual emancipation if they were allowed to do it on their own terms. OK, perhaps more of a wish than a prediction.

Weird how pervasive that idea is with zero evidence to support it and no way around the fact that almost every wealthy family in the region had much or even most of their wealth tied up in slaves. What "terms" do people usually come to before they voluntarily erase the accumulated wealth of generations?
 
Weird how pervasive that idea is with zero evidence to support it and no way around the fact that almost every wealthy family in the region had much or even most of their wealth tied up in slaves. What "terms" do people usually come to before they voluntarily erase the accumulated wealth of generations?

"What ifs" don't require evidence, but everyone else in the Western Hemisphere ended the practice through prevailing political practice without war. The "terms" that people come to are tears when market forces wipe out accumulated wealth. It's been going on for centuries. See post #40.
 
Whatever, it's not my job to guess his thoughts. He did not fight to perpetuate slavery, but rather in defence of his home. You can read the OP again, seems that you missed some crucial parts..


The words are "we did not fight to perpetuate human slavery, but for our rights and privileges under a government established over us by our fathers and in defense of our homes.”"

Please list the "rights and privileges " that existed in the Slave South but not after the American Civil War. I know of only one. Perhaps you can list a few?
 
"What ifs" don't require evidence, but everyone else in the Western Hemisphere ended the practice through prevailing political practice without war. The "terms" that people come to are tears when market forces wipe out accumulated wealth. It's been going on for centuries. See post #40.

I'd say it's likely that people whose wealth is tied up in slaves they consider to be sub-human, faced with declining fortunes in agriculture, would first pass on the bulk of that suffering and those tears to the slaves themselves and second find new ways to squeeze profit from their assets. Slaves can't work in factories?

Even after emancipation was forced on the slave states the "master race" fought tooth and nail to maintain that position. I don't see any justification for believing they would have ever given up voluntarily what they came to believe was a God-given condition. The bulk of evidence is certainly against it.
 
The words are "we did not fight to perpetuate human slavery, but for our rights and privileges under a government established over us by our fathers and in defense of our homes.”"

Please list the "rights and privileges " that existed in the Slave South but not after the American Civil War. I know of only one. Perhaps you can list a few?
I'm not sure that there were others, but right to leave the union. Yes yes, that was ruled unconsunconstitutional, but there were many that believed it was their right, OP shows one of them. And "in the making" there were some homes destroyed, some land occupied, some other men coming to tell what others can and cannot do. People tend to be against that. So, that qualifies as defense of home for me. I must ask you, and I hope that you answer as a mod, was cash's post (that I quoted) of good manner, and appropriate?
 
I'm not sure that there were others, but right to leave the union. Yes yes, that was ruled unconsunconstitutional, but there were many that believed it was their right, OP shows one of them. And "in the making" there were some homes destroyed, some land occupied, some other men coming to tell what others can and cannot do. People tend to be against that. So, that qualifies as defense of home for me. I must ask you, and I hope that you answer as a mod, was cash's post (that I quoted) of good manner, and appropriate?


Zip in individual rights which we are speaking of here except for property rights in humans. The right to leave the union is still in place, just have to follow procedure.

Destruction is the natural consequence of rebellion or going to war to force an opponent to do the will of the aggressor, sometimes the aggressor loses and it is not pleasant.
 
I will take Richard Henry Lee´s word for it, rather than yours. He, after all, did fight in the war, lived through it. You have some nerve.

I'll take the word of folks who actually told the truth.

"The vandals of the North . . . are determined to destroy slavery . . . We must all fight, and I choose to fight for southern rights and southern liberty." [Lunsford Yandell, Jr. to Sally Yandell, April 22, 1861 in James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War, p. 20]

"A stand must be made for African slavery or it is forever lost." [William Grimball to Elizabeth Grimball, Nov. 20, 1860, Ibid.]

"This country without slave labor would be completely worthless. We can only live & exist by that species of labor; and hence I am willing to fight for the last." [William Nugent to Eleanor Nugent, Sept 7, 1863, Ibid., p. 107]

"Better, far better! endure all the horrors of civil war than to see the dusky sons of Ham leading the fair daughters of the South to the altar." [William M. Thomson to Warner A. Thomson, Feb. 2, 1861, Ibid., p. 19]

"A captain in the 8th Alabama also vowed 'to fight forever, rather than submit to freeing negroes among us. . . . [We are fighting for] rights and property bequeathed to us by our ancestors.' " [Elias Davis to Mrs. R. L. Lathan, Dec. 10, 1863 Ibid., p. 107]

"Even though he was tired of the war, wrote a Louisiana artilleryman in 1862, ' I never want to see the day when a negro is put on an equality with a white person. There is too many free [n-word]s. . . now to suit me, let alone having four millions.' " [George Hamill Diary, March, 1862, Ibid., p. 109]

"A private in the 38th North Carolina, a yeoman farmer, vowed to show the Yankees ' that a white man is better than a [n-word].' " [Jonas Bradshaw to Nancy Bradshaw, April 29, 1862 Ibid.]

"A farmer from the Shenandoah Valley informed his fiancée that he fought to assure 'a free white man's government instead of living under a black republican government.' " [John G. Keyton to Mary Hilbert, Nov. 30, 1861, Ibid.]

"The son of another North Carolina dirt farmer said he would never stop fighting the Yankees, who were 'trying to force us to live as the colored race.' " [Samuel Walsh to Louisa Proffitt, April 11, 1864, Ibid.]

"Some of the boys asked them what they were fighting for, and they answered, 'You Yanks want us to marry our daughters to the [n-word]s.' " [Chauncey Cook to parents, May 10, 1864, Ibid.]

"An Arkansas captain was enraged by the idea that if the Yankees won, his 'sister, wife, and mother are to be given up to the embraces of their present dusky male servitors.' " [Thomas Key, diary entry April 10, 1864, Ibid.]

"Another Arkansas soldier, a planter, wrote his wife that Lincoln not only wanted to free the slaves but also 'declares them entitled to all the rights and privileges as American citizens. So imagine your sweet little girls in the school room with a black wooly headed negro and have to treat them as their equal.' " [William Wakefield Garner to Henrietta Garner, Jan 2, 1864, Ibid.]

"[If Atlanta and Richmond fell] we are irrevocably lost and not only will the negroes be free but . . . we will all be on a common level. . . . The negro who now waits on you will then be as free as you are & as insolent as she is ignorant.' " [Allen D. Chandler to wife, July 7, 1864, Ibid.]

"The South had always been solid for slavery and when the quarrel about it resulted in a conflict of arms, those who had approved the policy of disunion took the pro-slavery side. It was perfectly logical to fight for slavery, if it was right to own slaves." [John S. Mosby, Mosby's Memoirs, p. 20]
 
Guaranteed by the US Constitution, when enacted, and still on the books in 1865.

No, in fact it wasn't. If you think it was, then you should have no trouble quoting the part of the Constitution that guaranteed the right to own people.
 
"What ifs" don't require evidence, but everyone else in the Western Hemisphere ended the practice through prevailing political practice without war. The "terms" that people come to are tears when market forces wipe out accumulated wealth. It's been going on for centuries. See post #40.

Actually, everyone else in the Western Hemisphere did NOT end slavery without war. The historical standard for ending slavery was as the result of a war.
 
No, in fact it wasn't. If you think it was, then you should have no trouble quoting the part of the Constitution that guaranteed the right to own people.

"In addition, under the three-fifths clause of the Constitution, each slave—who had no legal rights as a person—counted as three-fifths of a free person when determining the basis for congressional representation and direct taxation. As a result, the South gained an advantage in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College. Professor Foner concludes his lecture by noting, "The contradiction between American freedom and American slavery survived the Revolution and became increasingly intense as the nineteenth century progressed." The Constitution failed to resolve this contradiction; indeed, it protected the liberty and property rights of slaveholders while ambiguously regarding slaves as both property and persons."

http://caho-test.cc.columbia.edu/ta/13028.html
 
"In addition, under the three-fifths clause of the Constitution, each slave—who had no legal rights as a person—counted as three-fifths of a free person when determining the basis for congressional representation and direct taxation. As a result, the South gained an advantage in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College. Professor Foner concludes his lecture by noting, "The contradiction between American freedom and American slavery survived the Revolution and became increasingly intense as the nineteenth century progressed." The Constitution failed to resolve this contradiction; indeed, it protected the liberty and property rights of slaveholders while ambiguously regarding slaves as both property and persons."

http://caho-test.cc.columbia.edu/ta/13028.html

So how does the 3/5 clause prevent the Congress from simply passing a law that says slavery is abolished throughout the US?
 
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