Which US PResidents were Horrid?: Part II

I'm still going to vote for Reagan. I'm sure even his ancestors around this time were bad people.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by loinburger

So you would call "failure to respect consitutionally guaranteed property rights" a "legal" action taken by the north?

Where did they do that? And more to the point how would seceding change things?

Frankly I have no respect for the claim that property rights were involved but I am aware the claim was made. Seceding couldn't improve things. It would only allow the Underground RailRoad to come into the open as a legal function to aid refugees from an oppressive foreign power.

If they wanted to keep their alleged property they should have kept it in their own states.

By the way you are only making my point with that. The property was slavery so that means slavery was the issue.

Read the Constitution, it was a property rights issue. It's not called "forcing THEIR laws on other states" when THEIR laws are Consitutionally guaranteed.

As long as you admit you just took my side that slavery was the issue.

The Dred Scott Decision has never been overturned. They had won what they wanted allready on that. Still, thank you for the help. Yes the property type known as slaves was the primary issue of the Civil War.

I've said before that had the issue only been slavery that the South would not have seceded, since it hurt their chances to maintain slavery to secede. You asked me what the other reasons for secession could possibly have been, I brought up tariffs, and you dismissed me out of hand.

Well it would have seceded had slavery been the only issue. In fact it was primary issue and all the rest could have handled in normal political give and take.

I didn't dismiss tariffs out of hand. I gave the real and actual reasons the South gave. Slavery. Tariffs had so little to do with it they didn't bother to mention it.

Yeah, funny, seeing as how I've said time and time again why tariffs would not be in the secession documents.

Why YOU think they would not. I asked for something besides your guess. You still haven't managed to dredge something up. The constitution is not evidence for WHY. Its only evidence that they wanted a change on that and they made similar changes for slavery and the Presidents term limits. So if the Constitution is evidence than I would have to say the the term limit for the President was nearly as important as tariffs and that tariffs came after slavery. Based on the number of changes.

All you have to do is look at the economic situation. Slavery was dying out anyway, outlawing it would have had little to no economic impact on the South.

Actually slavery was increasing at that time. Due to the cotton gin and possibly the triple evaporation system for sugar as well but no one ever mentions that. Sugar was number two in the Southern economy. The inventor was black so maybe that why it gets forgotton.

What Ramo and I have said and what you repeatedly ignore is that the secession documents were propoganda instruments.

That isn't true. I haven't ignored even once. I have pointed out the flaw EVERY time. You have nothing to back you on that. You have merely repeated ad nasuem without the slightest evidence to support you. I have supported myself. I asked you for something to support you. You appear to consider repeating the same some sort of support.

Twice nothing is still nothing. You claimed it, now show it.

They bring up slavery because it is an emotionally charged issue.

Funny you also switch between emotional and legal. It is true it can be both. It is also true it can be neither. Emotions are the cause of the secession. Emotions about slavery.

Even if the war were exclusively over tariffs, don't you think they'd try to incorporate something more emotionally charged?

I think you would be able to produce some evidence that tariffs were more important than slavery. None so far. The Constitution is not evidence of why they seceded especially considering that tariff was not the only change. Not even the biggest. Slavery is covered more extensivley.

Evidence is lacking repetition will not replace it.

I thought you admitted yourself that they were intended for propoganda. You certainly admitted it about the Declaration.

I did not do that. You are claiming MERE propaganda and that tariffs was the real issue. I pointed out and you ignored that the Declaration of Independence had REAL grievances. It was not covering up the main grievance with a secondary issue. Propaganda is not synomous with lies.

Evidence is not yet forthcoming. Perhaps you have looked and have had to fall back on this mere repitition.

Each time I have added something new. Each time you have largely ignored it and repeated you own personal oppinion. An opinion not held by the people that made decisions.

I note that you ignored what I showed about Jefferson Davis.

If you could economically establish that the removal of slavery would have had anywhere near the impact of the North's tariff policies, then I'll concede the issue and say "Yup, the whole war was about slavery." That's a promise.

Nice responce to my request for some evidence. Can't find any?

Do the work yourself. You are the one making the claim.

I will generously do half of it for you. The value of the 3.9 million slaves.

Some stuff I found to establish grounds for a rough evaluation.


On a typical plantation (more than 20 slaves) the capital value of the slaves was greater than the capital value of the land and implements.

Almost one-third of all Southern families owned slaves. In Mississippi and South Carolina it approached one half. The total number of slave owners was 385,000 (including, in Louisiana, some free Negroes). As for the number of slaves owned by each master, 88% held fewer than twenty, and nearly 50% held fewer than five.


3,950,546 slaves in the 1860 census

I can't find any general value for all the slaves. I do have some numbers I can massage into something reasonable.


The price of a healthy low-skilled male slave who was 18 years old in 1860 was approximately $1,600.

Daniel Drayton attempted to smuggle 76 slaves on the ship Pearl out of Washington to Freedom in the North. The slaves belonged to "41 of the most prominent families in Washington and Georgetown and were valued at $100,000."

Slaves in Washington D.C. were emancipated in 1862 by law for $300 each. That would likely be a bottom value in a declining market. There being NO market. That was the only place the Federal government could legaly enforce emancipation at that time.

So a nice round number would be $1,000 and it could the actual value was less or more. Certainly more than the $300 as the Feds don't like to pay full price and this was in 1862 not 1860 with legal sale of slaves. The smuggled slaves works out to 1,315 making 1,000 sound a bit low. So I am going with the $1,000. If you have better numbers that would good.

That comes up to nearly 4 billion. In 1860 dollars.

Just in property value. The large amount of money IS one of the reasons the Lincoln only emacipated slave in rebel territory. He didn't have to pay for them. The Constitution requires compensation.

Ever read the US Constitution? If you had, you'd notice that this is included in there as well. IIRC, importation of slavery had been illegal in the US since before its existence (when it was still a group of colonies).

I have a copy of the Constitution on my PC in my reference folder. You are wrong. Twice. Perhaps you might want a copy too. Its a small file.

The word slave isn't even the main body of the Constitution. It shows up first in the thirteenth amendment. The one that made slavery illegal 1865. The Constitution does refer to Other Persons in regards to the three fifths rule and it has the labor and service allusion that was used in the Dred Scott case. But not that item even with evasive words.

Importation of slaves was legal untill around 1808. It continued illegaly right up to the war. Perhaps that is what you are mistaking for part of the Constitution.

1808 President Thomas Jefferson signed a bill into law that made it illegal to import slaves into United States. Most Southern states refused to enforce the law and for many years African slaves poured into southern ports.

Do you even know who Jefferson Davis was? You sure did ignore my mentioning him.

These are the same as the property rights granted in the US Constitution. The only difference is that they make clear that slaves are property.

Not the same. The first is brand new and its based on the Dred Scot Decision which is based on the original version of the second item plus a load of racist thinking(yes racist, some of the stuff in that was a claim that Negroes weren't intended to be covered by the Constitution except as slaves). The second is related to the US version but has that emphasis on SLAVE.

I'd call the last two clarifications. I'd call the first one "the same thing as was in the US Constitition."

Well the last two are part clarification and part new and only based on ONE article not two. The first one of course is more in your imagination than in the Constitution. You should check these things. I do. You checked the Confederate Constitution why not the US?

Again, propoganda. Could you even imagine fighting a war over tariffs, regardless of which side you were on?

Ask the Founding Fathers that question. They had fit over 1% taxes on tea. You do keep pounding on that claim of propaganda as if the secession documents had no other meaning nor any bearing on anyones decision. With no evidence you sure are big on asking for it from me.

SHOW SOME EVIDENCE. I have LOTS. You have nothing but supposition, misrememberences of the US Constitution and attempted mind reading of the motives of people that spoke quite well for themselves.