Ignoring the issue of slavery, who would you have wanted to win the civil war?

[MrFun]

*** COUGH, COUGH ***

quote:

Originally posted by Ramo

They already knew it wasn't a good idea. Except in Texas where plenty of land was still available, slavery was becoming unprofitable. There were more efficient ways of exploiting people. Some sort of gradual emancipation program, I'm certain, would've been enacted within a couple decades.

Assuming secession was about slavery, Lincoln gave the South almost everything they possibly could want - a Constitutional Amendment and a guarantee of the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act! And they refused his offer because "they already seceded?" That's insane!
**********END OF RAMO'S QUOTE

Originally posted by MrFun


Have you ever heard of one side on an issue misperceiving the other side? Have you ever heard of paranoia and extremism??

By this point that you're talking about, Ramo, Southern leaders and slave owners were so tensed and overly defensive in regards to slavery, that they would not believe anything that Lincoln told them.

Southern leaders felt that their economic basis (slavery) was being attacked at from ALL sides constantly over several decades.
By the time Lincoln tried to make these compromising proposals, there was no reassuring the Southern leaders.

Anyone with a basic understanding of psychology would have a better chance of understanding the state of mind that many Southerners were in at this point.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Ramo
Actually, you've got some kind of reading disability.

Yes I can read what people write and actualy see what they wrote instead things they didn't. That would be a terrible disability if I was in your position.

The North passed the largest tariff increase in US history the moment almost immediately after some of the Southern states seceded. The North wasn't looking for a real compromise.

Secession was the end of compromise. That was a Southern decision.

Going to war over the threat of abolition after recieving notice that the federal government would never interfere with slavery isn't exactly the right thing to do.

Yet they did so anyway so perhaps you just don't want to accept reality. After all they mostly seceeded imediatly and did not seem to be in the least interested in listening to anyone North of the Mason-Dixon line. Blind stubborness is not unheard of in human behaviour. Perhaps this is really what you are so unwilling to accept.

[Boris Godunov]

From Jeff Davis:

"In the meantime, under the mild and genial climate of the Southern States and the increasing care and attention for the well-being and comfort of the laboring class [slave owners], dictated alike by interest and humanity, the African slaves had augmented in number …In moral and social condition they had been elevated from brutal savages into docile, intelligent, and civilized agricultural laborers, and supplied not only with bodily comforts but with careful religious instruction. Under the supervision of a superior race their labor had been so directed as not only to allow a gradual and marked amelioration of their own condition…With interests of such overwhelming magnitude imperiled, the people of the Southern States were driven by the conduct of the North to the adoption of some course of action to avert the danger with which they were openly menaced. With this view the Legislatures of the several States invited the people to select delegates to conventions to be held for the purpose of determining for themselves what measures were best adapted to meet so alarming a crisis in their history." (Message of Jefferson Davis to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America)

The menace Jeff is referring to is the abolition of slavery. The course of action that the South was driven to was secession. Ergo, Mr. Davis says clearly--the war was over slavery.

[MrFun]

Don't ignore my post, please.

[Ned]

Just my two cents, if the South prevailed, they would have established a principle that succession was lawful. This principle would eventually led to the succession of further states from the Southern Confederacy as soon as they became displeased with an act of the Confederacy's central government. Such a principle leads to a weak central government. It also leads, as we saw, to Civil War.

It was a very purpose of establishing a strong central government that the United States was formed from its predecessor government, a Confederacy. I totally support the concept that the acts of the federal government are binding on the states unless they are unconstitutional; but whether they are unconstitutional should only be determined by United States Supreme Court, and not by nullification or succession of a state.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ned
Just my two cents, if the South prevailed, they would have established a principle that succession was lawful. This principle would eventually led to the succession of further states from the Southern Confederacy as soon as they became displeased with an act of the Confederacy's central government. Such a principle leads to a weak central government. It also leads, as we saw, to Civil War.

This, in fact, did happen in the CSA. During the war, Davis found it increasingly impossible to handle the CSA states, who were using their "states rights" mentality to refuse to contribute taxes to the war effort or provide soldiers for the Confederate Army. In addition, every Southern state except S. Carolina experienced rebellions from counties and townships, some of whom tried to secede from the CSA and some who insisted they were still part of the Union. Eventually, an exhasperated Jeff Davis lashed out at "states rights" as destroying the CSA and pretty much cursed the entire notion. It certainly did nothing to help the CSA war effort.

[Ethelred]

Half of Virginia exercised it states rights to become West Virginia.

[Ramo]

Have you ever heard of one side on an issue misperceiving the other side? Have you ever heard of paranoia and extremism??

By this point that you're talking about, Ramo, Southern leaders and slave owners were so tensed and overly defensive in regards to slavery, that they would not believe anything that Lincoln told them.

1. Ethel believes that the Southern leaders should've behaved perfectly rational with respect to the tariff, but totally irrational with respect to slavery. That strikes me as an inconsistency. No doubt, Southern leaders were paranoid to some degree, and that they invented fanthom threats to justify secession.

2. Even for someone extremely paranoid, it's total insanity to believe someone who not only constantly asserted that he wouldn't impose abolition on the South, that refused to support abolition in Washington DC, that refused to condemn the Fugitive Slave Law after it was passed, would force the South to accept abolition unless the South did something along the lines of secession.

Southern leaders felt that their economic basis (slavery) was being attacked at from ALL sides constantly over several decades.

Their economic basis (agiculture) WAS attacked on all sides over several decades by protective tariffs. Slavery in the Southern states was never attacked by anyone with any real power in the US government before the South seceded.

Anyone with a basic understanding of psychology would have a better chance of understanding the state of mind that many Southerners were in at this point.

Don't ignore my post, please.

Don't repost your comments, please. You know, some people aren't on Apolyton 24 hours a day.

One speech. So despite the overwhelming abundance of secession documents,

Which are propaganda. That's what I was pointing out. See the guy that I quoted. Secession documents present the casi belli, not the real motivations for war.

and speeches of other, equally or more prominent politicians who say otherwise, this one speech proves it was all propaganda

They go along with the secession documents. Prominent politicans present a government interpretation of an event. And they emphasize what would give them the greatest chance of holding onto the reigns of power, namely the federal gov't going out of its way.

newspaper editorials?

Newspapers and non-politicians? I've got plenty to back me up.

Which state shall I start with; let's try Mississippi.

"If the Union were dissolved tomorrow, it is probable that 99/100 of the population would never know the fact except by a lessening of taxation and a general improvement of trade."
-Natchez Free Trader (one of the major Mississippian newspapers), March 3, 1858
The editor asserted that the South was paying "fifty millions a year for Northern guardianship." And that port cities like New Orleans would greatly benefit; "A dissolution of the present union would make New Orleans in five years what New York is now, and while the former is increased in financial grandeur and wealth, the latter would decrease correspondingly.... A dissolution would make New Orleans the chief importing as well as exporting city of the continent, for the very good and sufficient reason that she alone would pay for her imports with her exports possessing as she does, and would, more than half of the cotton export trade.... The horns of the cresent would be filled with repletion with the products of all climes under the sun, and her commercial supremacy not be questioned by any rival mart on the surface of the globe."
The Free Trader wrote, "Ere the 4th of March next the signs of the times that a Southern Confederacy will be formed and the principle of Free Trade will be established. Then will the North prostrate in the dust too keenly feel what a precous jewel they have parted with, never to be regained. The South needs no Custom House and will thrive on Free Trade as she nver can without it."

Col. Ward, an influential Mississipian wrote, "Here is the matter in a nutshell: let Mississippi disconnect herself from all those who would oppress her; she has wealth and intelligence; she has a capacious harbour to export and recieve in return a just and equivalent remuneration for her vast productions. We can trade direct with Europ, ship our cotton there, the merchant can afford to give us more for it and sell to us cheaper than the Northern merchants can; the farmer will have not extravegent duties to pay as he does now, and a large propolrtion fo which goes to the support of those who are unfriendly to slave labour."

Virginia?

Through a very popular pamphlet in Virginia, "The Value of the Union to the South" written (anonymously) by Garnett, a prominent Virginian lawyer, it was circulated around the state prior to secession that:
1. Through the tonnage duties, the Southern farmers and merchants paid Northern shiping $4*10^7 annually.
2. The North had unfair access to $1.33*10^8 (actually, his reasoning turned out wrong, but no one caught on at the time) of Southern capital in the year 1848 alone.
3. The South paid $7.98*10^8 out of $1.047*10^9 in customs duties throughout US history.
4. In the payment for the salaries for customs officials, 4/5 of the money was expended in the North.
5. In "internal improvements" (or industrial subsidies), the Noreth recieved 7-8 times as much per mi^2 as the South.
6. In light houses and coastal defences, the North recieved twice as much per mile of seacoast as the South.
7. In 1848, the amount of Southern loss was $63/family.
8. Independence would save the Southern governments $3.4*10^7 in taxes, and bring in $7*10^6 in income.

The Richmand Semi-Weekly Examiner on 2/5/61 estimated that secession had decreased sales in imported commodities at the North by $2*10^7 since 1/1/61 and that sales of domestic products had, by the loss of the South, been decreased by a much greater amount.

Louisiana?

In the New Orleans Picayune, another prominant newspaper, it was written:
"The Progress of political events bids fair to inflict a sever blow upon the commerce port of New York, and to depreciate real estate in this city in a makred manner. The Government of the Southern Confederacy has re-enacted the tariff of 1857. This was done in the persuasion that [the US] Congress has re-enacted the tariff of 1857. This was done in the persuasion that [the US] Congress would not be so insane and so reckless of the interests of the country as to adopt the Morrill Tariff-- the idea of the Southern leaders being to avoid any unnecesary complications or buisiness embarassments during this transition state. Unfortunately for the North, the Congress at Montgomery overrated the wisdom of the Congress at Washington, and the Morrill tariff became a law. The consequence is, that after the 1st of April next, New Orleans will take a stride toward becoming the chief importing port in the country, and New York will begin to fall toward second place."

Et cetera, etc., etc.

Yes indeedy you don't want to address that final sentence of his at all do you? Right there he says the Declaration has the primary causes. The means clearly that he did not think tariffs were a primary cause.

How many times are you planning on evading that?

For what it's worth, I never invaded anything. I just chose to address the same assertion one time in each post. This is the only time in the post that I'll address the claim about him supposedly saying that tariff is not a primary cause and that slavery is the primary cause.

Again, he explains why he doesn't mention the tariff, and champions emphasizing breaking of contracts with respect to slavery instead. Obviously, the tariff is not a legitimate casus belli. It is enshrined in the Constitution, and the South, to a limited extent, supported tariffs on sugar. It is a "doctrinal" point, and degrades the situation to "party politics." On the other hand, Northern actions with respect to slavery were causi belli. The North promised to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, and didn't, legitimizing the dissoulution of the Constitution.

Of course even if he did back you he is still only person in one state. That cannot overturn the many voices that don't agree with your distorted version of his speech.

Doesn't matter. His speech explains the mentality of all the other Southern politicians.

He didn't say that. He said the declaration covered the primary issues. You are ignoring that.

The declaration was a legal treatise. You're ignoring that.

Got a link? I am unimpressed though.

http://douglass.speech.nwu.edu/davi_b16.htm

His real trade policy was blockade running. Whether he mentioned it or not. He had no choice in the matter.

He mentions the benefits the South would get by not being subjected to Yankee tariffs.

After all he had already tried to make a compromise ONLY addressed slave issues.

He probably tried a compromise that the North was willing to budge on, as Lincoln's inaugural address obviously revealed, as opposed to the tariff which the North was not willing to budge on, as the Morrill Tariffs revealed.

It was now time to try to run a country and his stand on slavery was very clear allready.

The speech was about the benefits of secession. If slavery was so important, why hadn't he mentioned it?

Slavery was making a profit. Primarily in the increase in the value of the slave though. Slavery HAD BEEN becoming unprofitable prior to the cotton gin. That is when slavery made a comeback. It was always profitable in the sugar business. The job was dangerous and only forced labor was being used in it because of that.

And it was in decline again. Unless there is plenty of land available, slavery becomes unprofitable. It happened in parts fo the Carribean a couple decades earlier (after the cotton gin), it was happening in the South at the time. The South was facing major liquidity problems, and its primary export was about to be undermined by cotton from Egypt and India. Abolition was nearly inevitable within a couple decades.

There was still the matter of Southern Senators. They could and often did filibuster. That is still a popular way to force compromise.

If the South did that, it could never count on getting anything it wanted from the North. It would lead to war.

It was slavery that was the casus belli not tariffs.

That's what I'm saying!
You haven't read what you just quoted. Again:
"A casus belli is a term that has to do with the legality of war, as it did for centuries earlier (the term probably came from Aquinas), not with the real reasons for a war. A casus belli might be some dynastic inheritance issue, while the real reason would have to do with territorial ambitions. "

He says CLEARLY that tariffs are not what got the people aroused to secession.

No, he's saying that they couldn't think of secession without an appropriate casus belli. Last time they tried that, Jackson, one of the stronger anti-protectionist Presidents, forced them to back down.

That is a compromise. Considering that you have been useing the enacted bill to try to support yourself.

No, it's not a compromise. It was the original bill before secession.

The South had clearly gone paranoid on the issue. They refused all the compromises after all.

So the South must be "paranoid" with respect to slavery, but they couldn't be with respect to tariffs?

I never pretended the South was rational anymore. They were very clear about why they were seceeding.

Why would the South be rational about tariffs?

Nonsense. Seven states seceeded before Lincoln was elected. Jefferson Davis was inaugurated two weeks before Lincoln was.

I don't dispute that.

The last four Confederate states seceeded right after Ft. Sumter, which was 39 days after Lincolns inaugeration.

39? Days after an event usually denotes a small number of days, not 39.

BTW, it's more accurate to say that the last Confederate states seceded right after Lincoln ordered the states for his ~10^5 men to "crush the rebellion." If he didn't do that, or if he support such harsh tariffs, he probably could've avoided these states' secession.

You aren't reading what your posting from that site you linked to.

Actually, you're using absurd logic.

I can say what I did because Lincoln dealt with the property FIRST and the tariffs second.

That's your only justification!
Maybe his oratorical style emphasized the end of a long sentence more than the beginning. Or maybe he wanted to emphasize tariffs less because he knew that it would be much less palatable to the South.

I didn't repeat it over and over.

You did repeat over and over. In the last thread, you were constantly ranting about states' rights. And you continue to do so.

I take it you are bit sensitive on this point.

No, I just don't appreciate bullshit about "avoiding" points when clearly I did nothing of the sort. It makes the debate uncivil, and uncivil debates annoy me. Nor do I like derailing my points with something that is unrelated to the debate and what I wrote.

You didn't agree with me. You protested that I mentioned it at all. Which is why it got mentioned again.

I did agree with you, many times.

Are you getting confused? Did you really mean to say slavery there?

Oh please, I suppose you've never made typos.

They are a Chamber of Commerce not industry. That means they sell things not make them. The main area that wanted protective tariffs was not New York City.

The Chamber of Commerce represents merchants. Merchants sell products for industrialists. If European merchants are able to sell products cheaper, they lose. Merchants depended upon tariffs; there's a reason why mercantilism is called what it is.

You are confused. If Lincoln has the Feds collecting tariffs in the South how is that not having a tariff policy imposed on them?

I'm not confused, that was obviously a typo.

Do we collect tariffs in Canada? Could Canada possibly be construed as an independent nation if we did so?

As the Nicaruaguans about this. We took over their Customs houses then we told them who ran their country. They were not indepent at that point and no one thought they were.

I would agree that the CSA wouldn't be an independnet state, but it would be independent in some ways, namely in every area but trade (you asserted that they wouldn't be independent in any way).

If let someone else run your custom houses (collecting tariffs requires that) you are in no way an independent state. Lincoln was not recognizing the South as independent. No one else would under those conditions.

Again, you would be independent in plenty of ways. But trade is too unimportant to cause secession, so why should it matter?

Thats because they weren't part of the US.

Neither was the CSA.

The South was not independent as far as the North was concerned. In any case no country that was really independent has ever alowed us to tax their imports.

Well, that's an argument by definition. Of course a country wouldn't be completely independent if another ran its external trade policy.

To do so would make the South a non-entity in international affairs. Much like Nicaragua became when Teddy took over the Customs houses.

So are you now arguing that trade is extaordinarily important, and was one of the major factors that caused secession?

What was the contract?

The Constitution.

Well you can't change the sense of the South by invention like you are trying.

It's totally nonintuitive for a country not to go to war over hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars annually, but to do so because of a non-existent threat. It simply does not make sense. At all. Wars are ultimately about cold hard cash.

The South clearly and explicitly said it made sense to seceed and even go to war over slavery.

The South clearly and explicitly said that it would gain really big from divorcing itself from Yankee protectionism. I guess it's a just a big huge fantastic cooincidence that a war wasn't about that, even though there almost was a war about protectionism 27 years earlier.

[Boris Godunov]

Which are propaganda. That's what I was pointing out. See the guy that I quoted. Secession documents present the casi belli, not the real motivations for war.

They go along with the secession documents. Prominent politicans present a government interpretation of an event. And they emphasize what would give them the greatest chance of holding onto the reigns of power, namely the federal gov't going out of its way.

And yet, you point out that:

If you want to look at the real reasons for secession, the ultimate benefits to the South of secession, check out Jefferson Davis' inaugural address. I couldn't find a single reference to slavery; most of the meat was about trade policy.

Now, here in his inaugeral address, the ultimate platform for propaganda, David doesn't mention slavery. Yet he did so, as I quoted, time and again to the legislatures, who were (by your assertion) fully in on the propaganda. Why would he waste time trying to fool people who were already in on your little propaganda scheme? Why wouldn't he use his possibly furthest-reaching speech for such propaganda?

The answer is that you are swapping the propaganda with the meat. It was tariffs that were the propaganda, it was slavery that was the real issue. Even in one of your quotes, it says:

Col. Ward, an influential Mississipian wrote, "Here is the matter in a nutshell: let Mississippi disconnect herself from all those who would oppress her; she has wealth and intelligence; she has a capacious harbour to export and recieve in return a just and equivalent remuneration for her vast productions. We can trade direct with Europ, ship our cotton there, the merchant can afford to give us more for it and sell to us cheaper than the Northern merchants can; the farmer will have not extravegent duties to pay as he does now, and a large propolrtion fo which goes to the support of those who are unfriendly to slave labour."

(and I don't care how influential "Col. Ward" is, as he's outranked by the politicians in the CSA government, who all advocated slavery as the cause).

Yeah, and of course the Free Trader is gonna talk about tariffs, as it is an economic publication.

So here are some other sources:

"And now you tender us the inhuman alternative of unconditional submission to Republican rule on abolition principles, and ultimately to free negro equality and a government of mongrels or a war of races on the one hand, and on the other secession and a bloody and desolating civil war, waged in an attempt by the Federal Government to reduce us to submission to these wrongs….Our own Government succeeded because none but the white race, who were capable of self-government, were enfranchised with the rights of freemen. The irrepressible conflict propounded by abolitionism has produced now its legitimate fruits-- disunion. Free negro equality, which is its ultimate object, would make us re-enact the scenes of revolution and anarchy we have so long witnessed and deplored in the American governments to the south of us. " (Speech of Representative John H. Reagan of Texas, January 15, 1861)

"Gentlemen: Your letter requesting me to give to the people of Georgia my views upon the issues involved in the election of delegates to the State Convention, which is to assemble in January next, has been received…I propose to discuss briefly three propositions.
1st. Is the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency, sufficient cause to justify Georgia and the other Southern States in seceding from the Union?
2d. What will be the results to the institution of slavery which will follow submission to the inauguration and administration of Mr. Lincoln as the President of one section of the Union.
3d. What will be the effect which the abolition of Slavery will have upon the interests and the social position of the large class of nonslaveholders and poor white laborers, who are in the South?" (Governor Joseph Brown of Georgia, Open Letter, December 7, 1860)

"Whereas, the election of Abraham Lincoln, a Black Republican, to the Presidency of the United States by a purely sectional vote and by a party whose leading and publicly avowed object is the destruction of the institution of slavery as it exists in the slave-holding States; and whereas, the success of said party and the power which it now has and soon will acquire greatly endanger the peace, interests, security, and honor of the slave-holding States, and make it necessary that prompt and effective measures should be adopted to avoid the evils which must result from a Republican administration of the Federal Government, and as the interests and destiny of the slave-holding States are the same, they must naturally sympathize with each other, they therefore, so far as may be practicable, should consult and advise together as to what is best to be done to protect their mutual interests and honor…" (Alabama secession commissioner A.B. Moore, in a letter to Georgia Governor J. Brown, Dec. 21, 1860)

"Mr. President, if pecuniary loss alone were involved in the abolition of slavery, I should hesitate long before I would give the vote I now intend to give. If the destruction of slavery entailed on us poverty alone, I could bear it, for I have seen poverty and felt its sting. But poverty, Mr. President, would be one of the least of the evils that would befall us from the abolition of African slavery. There are now in the slaveholding States over four millions of slaves; dissolve the relation of master and slave, and what, I ask, would become of that race? To remove them from amongst us is impossible. History gives us no account of the exodus of such a number of persons. We neither have a place to which to remove them, nor the means of such removal. They therefore must remain with us; and if the relation of master and slave be dissolved, and our slaves turned loose amongst us without restraint, they would either be destroyed by our own hands-- the hands to which they look, and look with confidence, for protection-- or we ourselves would become demoralized and degraded. …This being the alternative, I cannot hesitate for a moment what my duty is. I must separate from the Government of my fathers, the one under which I have lived, and under which I wished to die. But I must do my duty to my country and my fellow beings; and humanity, in my judgment, demands that Alabama should separate herself from the Government of the United States." (Speech of E.S. Dargan, in the Convention of Alabama, Jan. 11, 1861)

This one above is pretty damning, as it not only is assering that slavery is the main issue, but that it isn't even the economic loss of abolishing slavery that bothers him...it's letting blacks free!

"African slavery is the corner-stone of the industrial, social, and political fabric of the South; and whatever wars against it, wars against her very existence. Strike down the institution of African slavery and you reduce the South to depopulation and barbarism…The anti-slavery party contend that slavery is wrong in itself, and the Government is a consolidated national democracy. We of the South contend that slavery is right, and that this is a confederate Republic of sovereign States." (Lawrence Keitt, Congressman from South Carolina, in a speech to the House on January 25, 1860)

"Our people have come to this on the question of slavery. I am willing, in that address to rest it upon that question. I think it is the great central point from which we are now proceeding, and I am not willing to divert the public attention from it." (Keitt, as delegate to the South Carolina secession convention, during the debates on the state's declaration of causes)

"What did we go to war for, if not to protect our property?" (Robert M.T. Hunter, Senator from Virginia)

"If the Republican party with its platform of principles, the main feature of which is the abolition of slavery and, therefore, the destruction of the South, carries the country at the next Presidential election, shall we remain in the Union, or form a separate Confederacy? This is the great, grave issue. It is not who shall be President, it is not which party shall rule -- it is a question of political and social existence. " (Alfred P. Aldrich, South Carolina legislator from Barnwell)

"the moment this House undertakes to legislate upon this subject [slavery], it dissolves the Union. Should it be my fortune to have a seat upon this floor, I will abandon it the instant the first decisive step is taken looking towards legislation of this subject. I will go home to preach, and if I can, practice, disunion, and civil war, if needs be. A revolution must ensue, and this republic sink in blood." (James H. Hammond, Congressman from South Carolina)

More to come...

[Ramo]

Now, here in his inaugeral address, the ultimate platform for propaganda, David doesn't mention slavery.

He doesn't refer to the supposed causes of secession, the casus belli. He only refers to the benefits of secession. That's the difference. And he needs no pretense for that.

(and I don't care how influential "Col. Ward" is, as he's outranked by the politicians in the CSA government, who all advocated slavery as the cause

The point is that he's not a politician... He wasn't concerning himself with giving the South a casus belli.

Yeah, and of course the Free Trader is gonna talk about tariffs, as it is an economic publication.

It's a newspaper, and an important one at that... Do you deem the Economist an inaccurate source for news?

This one above is pretty damning, as it not only is assering that slavery is the main issue, but that it isn't even the economic loss of abolishing slavery that bothers him...it's letting blacks free!

You can't seriously believe that he would have poverty before abolition!

Again, politicans say what they do to keep themselves in power, and the best way to do that was to make clear that they had an adaquete casus belli. Newspapers are more independent... And tariffs were certainly a major issue in the papers.

[MrFun]

Ramo, could you PLEASE make your posts smaller?? Even if it means posting two different posts right after another, that would be better.

Originally posted by Ramo
The South clearly and explicitly said that it would gain really big from divorcing itself from Yankee protectionism. I guess it's a just a big huge fantastic cooincidence that a war wasn't about that, even though there almost was a war about protectionism 27 years earlier.

So in other words, you do not believe that there was any social, economic, and political changes 27 years later?
You would be mistaken with that presumption.

The issue of slavery became more central, and more intense and more national 27 years later.

[Boris Godunov]

Ramo, many of those were letters of politicians addressed to other politicians. Why on earth would they bother keeping up a pretense of propaganda in correspondence with others who were, presumably, keeping up the same charade?

But okay, Newspapers:

"Is it not more probable and more philosophic to suppose that, as in the past, so in the future, the Anglo-Saxon race will, in the course of years, occupy and absorb the whole of that splendid by ill-peopled country [Mexico], and to remove by gradual process, before them, the worthless mongrel races that now inhabit and curse the land? And in the accomplishment of this destiny is there a Southern man so bold as to say, the people of the South with their slave property are to consent to total exclusion.? Our people will never sit still and see themselves excluded from all expansion, to please the North." (Charleston Mercury, February 28, 1860)

"I think it but easy to show that the interest of the poorest non-slaveholder among us is to make common cause with, and die in the last trenches, in defence of the slave property of his more favored neighbor…The non-slaveholders of the South may be classed as either such as desire and are incapable of purchasing slaves, or such as have the means to purchase and do not, because of the absence of the motive-preferring to hire or employ cheaper white labor. A class conscientiously objecting to the ownership of slave property does not exist at the South: for all such scruples have long since been silenced by the profound and unanswerable arguments to which Yankee controversy has driven our statesmen, popular orators, and clergy. Upon the sure testimony of God’s Holy Book, and upon the principles of universal polity, they have defended and justified the institution! The exceptions, which embrace recent importations [sic] in Virginia, and in some of the Southern cities, from the free States of the North, and some of the crazy, socialistic Germans in Texas, are too unimportant to affect the truth of the proposition." (James D.B. DeBow, DeBow's Review - January 1861)

"The old Union, the glorious Union our fathers made, has been dissolved—ruthlessly torn asunder by Northern fanaticism—against the earnest protestation of the people of Virginia. From that Union, the allies of Virginia, her truth and mien have been derived, and her people have now to decide whether they will remain with the North or go with the South….The ultimatum of the seceded States is left in no uncertainty; it is to be found in the solemn action of the Montgomery Constitution and may be analyzed as follows:
1. That African slavery in the Territories shall be recognized and protected by Congress and the Territorial Legislatures.
2. That the right to slaveholders of transit and sojourn in any State of the Confederacy, with their slaves and other property, shall be recognized and respected.
3. That the provision in regard to fugitive slaves shall extend to any slave lawfully carried from one State into another, and there escaping or taken away from his master.
4. That no bill or ex post facto law (by Congress or any State,) and no law impairing or denying the right of property in negro slaves, shall be passed.
5. That the African slave trade shall be prohibited by such laws of Congress as shall effectually prevent the same.
The report made by Gov. Wise embraces all these." (Richmond Enquirer, "The True Issue,"March 23, 1861)

"It is abolition doctrine . . . the very doctrine which the war was commenced to put down." (North Carolina Standard, Jan. 17, 1865)

"We regard every man in our midst an enemy to the institutions of the South, who does not boldly declare that he believes African slavery to be a social, moral, and political blessing." (Atlanta Confederacy, 1860)

And to answer Col. Ward:

"We have much to say in vindication of our conduct, but this we must leave to history. The bloody conflict between brothers, is closed, and we 'come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.' The South had $2,000,000,000 invested in Slaves. It was very natural, that they should desire to protect, and not lose this amount of property. Their action in this effort, resulted in War. There was no desire to dissolve the Union, but to protect this property. The issue was made and it is decided." (Sterling Cockrill, planter from Courtland, AL, 18 Sept. 1865. Letter to Pres. Johnson)

"Our plain view of the war is simply this. For a long series of years the people of the North differed with those of the South upon the question of slavery and the relations between the states and Federal government. All peaceable means of adjustment were resorted to and failed to reconcile us. At last the controversy was referred to that tribunal from whose decision there is no appeal--to the tribunal of war,--the arbitrament of the sword." (Ladies of Greenbrier County, WV, 22 Sept. 1865. Letter to Pres. Johnson)

And one second-hand source:

"Last night I talked awhile to those men who came in day before yesterday from the S.W. part of the state about 120 miles distant. Many of them wish Slavery abolished & slaves out of the country as they said it was the cause of the War, and the Curse of our Country & the foe of the body of the people--the poor whites. They knew the Slave masters got up the war expressly in the interests of the institution, & with no real cause from the Government or the North." (James B. Lockney, 28th Wisconsin Infantry, writing near Arkadelphia, Arkansas October 19, 1863)

[Boris Godunov]

You can't seriously believe that he would have poverty before abolition!

He does. And yeah, I can believe it. You can't seriously think a people would go to war over tariffs that hadn't yet been passed through congress, do you? Especially when all previous such tariffs had been ammended to the favor of the South?

You're trying to make the propaganda the cause and the cause the propaganda here.

[MrFun]

By the 1850's, both, Northern leaders, and Southern leaders developed antagonistic ideologies that were based on the idealism of the Revolutionary generation.

The Northern leaders believed that the Revolutionary leaders opposed the expansion of slavery and showed their opposition through the Northwest Ordinance (not saying they were right with this belief -- this is what it was).

On the other side, Southern leaders believed that the Revolutionary leaders affirmed the right to property of slave owners by delaying the abolition of the slave trade and by allowing slave owners to take their property to new territories in the western frontier of the South.

Here is an excerpt from a newspaper titled Charleston Mercury:

"But for the stern and unflinching vindication of the rights of white men by the independent citizens of the slaveholding states, whom power could not intdimidate, capital buy, or money crush, this Confederacy would have long since merged into a central despotism . . . The Bank monopoly on the one hand, the manufacturing monopoly on the other, combining with the large monarchical element . . . would have been able to effect this, but for the steady manly opposition of the Southern people . . . It was in slavery that the conservative element of republicanism was found, to overcome this reactionary movement towards the annihilation of individual liberty and dignity and State sovereignty."

This above exceprt is only one example among hundreds at that time, that shows how Southerners created an ideology that used idealism of liberty to support slavery.

With the North and the South creating and advocating conflicting ideologies out of the same heritage, the issue of slavery intensified as the 1850's continued onwards.
Both sides, the North and the South, believed in liberty -- but the problem was, they had different visions of that liberty.

[OzzyKP]

Can't we just agree that Tariffs and slavery were a factor in the succession?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
Can't we just agree that Tariffs and slavery were a factor in the succession?

I would, with the caveat slavery was by far the more important factor. The economic issues of the war were all tied into slavery. It was at the root of everthing.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
Can't we just agree that Tariffs and slavery were a factor in the succession?

Everyone but Ramos and maybe Slowhand has. However slavery was the primary issue. Tariffs had come up before as a divisive issue and the evidence shows this.


I will get to Ramos later. I don't feel like dealing with Stonewall Ramos's post today.