Happy Birthday, Jefferson Davis

[slackjawed]

plenty of people in the north at that time that opposed slavery.

It was the cause of the day for all the churches.

 

[MuadDib]

No it's not, because it suggests that moral opposition to slavery was not a consideration when in fact it was. There were a number of other considerations as well, but that one cannot be discounted.

There weren't enough people morally opposed to slavery in the north to make it a consideration. .

That is incorrect.

No, it is correct. Groups or individuals in the North holding a moral or religious opposition to slavery were very much a minority.

SlaveNorth

 

[MuadDib]

Do you know who the first black slave for life at the Jamestown Colony was? John Casor.

Interesting article.

 

[Againsheila]

The North gave up slavery primarily because it was a bad fit for their type of economy, not through any moralistic view of it. .

Your personal agenda aside, that is not accurate.

Interesting tidbit. Delaware was both the first and the last state to give up slavery.

 

[Unkotare]

There weren't enough people morally opposed to slavery in the north to make it a consideration. .

That is incorrect.

No, it is correct. Groups or individuals in the North holding a moral or religious opposition to slavery were very much a minority.

SlaveNorth

Are you really unaware of the abolitionist movement in the North? Its history and influence upon the social and political climate of the times? When people go out of their way, as you seem to be, to make excuses or promote such flimsy arguments it is a sign that they are covering for some other agenda.

 

[MuadDib]

That is incorrect.

No, it is correct. Groups or individuals in the North holding a moral or religious opposition to slavery were very much a minority.

SlaveNorth

Are you really unaware of the abolitionist movement in the North? Its history and influence upon the social and political climate of the times? When people go out of their way, as you seem to be, to make excuses or promote such flimsy arguments it is a sign that they are covering for some other agenda.

I'm quite aware of the abolitionist movement in the North. I just posted you a link to some very good info on it.

I have no agenda except factual history.

 

[Unkotare]

Then you need to study US History more carefully.

 

[Againsheila]

That is incorrect.

No, it is correct. Groups or individuals in the North holding a moral or religious opposition to slavery were very much a minority.

SlaveNorth

Are you really unaware of the abolitionist movement in the North? Its history and influence upon the social and political climate of the times? When people go out of their way, as you seem to be, to make excuses or promote such flimsy arguments it is a sign that they are covering for some other agenda.

John Brown and his abolitionists were a small crazy minority.

 

[Unkotare]

And John Brown was the extent of the entire history of the abolitionist movement in the North?


???

 

[hortysir]

The North gave up slavery primarily because it was a bad fit for their type of economy, not through any moralistic view of it. .

Your personal agenda aside, that is not accurate.

Interesting tidbit. Delaware was both the first and the last state to give up slavery.

Another interesting trivia question:

How many slave ships sailed from southern ports?
How many flew the Union flag?
How many flew a Confederate flag?

 

[MuadDib]

Your personal agenda aside, that is not accurate.

Interesting tidbit. Delaware was both the first and the last state to give up slavery.

Another interesting trivia question:

How many slave ships sailed from southern ports?
How many flew the Union flag?
How many flew a Confederate flag?

They didn't call them "Yankee slave traders" for nothing.

 

[demiurge]

There weren't enough people morally opposed to slavery in the north to make it a consideration. .

That is incorrect.

No, it is correct. Groups or individuals in the North holding a moral or religious opposition to slavery were very much a minority.

This shit again?

Even your own article doesn't support that bullshit.

And I quote:
Slavery in the North never approached the numbers of the South. It was, numerically, a drop in the bucket compared to the South.
and
When the Northern states gave up the last remnants of legal slavery, in the generation after the Revolution, their motives were a mix of piety, morality, and ethics; fear of a growing black population; practical economics; and the fact that the Revolutionary War had broken the Northern slaveowners' power and drained off much of the slave population.

Yes, slavery was very much a distinct minority in the South, with slavery ending in most Northern states at least half a century before the Emancipation Proclamation. And morality and ethics were a large reason that happened, if not the only one. Your argument that it was a minority opinion isn't supported by that piece, and most of the discussion of slavery in the North was in the 18th century, not the 19th.

 

[demiurge]

The Confederacy didn't want to do anything more than leave.

Clearly untrue - as they were the ones who fired the first shots. Indeed, cadets from the Citadel fired on the Star of the West before any of the other states even seceded.

The first shots fired were long before any group from the Confederacy petitioned Washington for the sale of Federal institutions.

Indeed, Federal institutions were seized by force before the matter was even take to the courts to determine the legality of it.

 

[demiurge]

I think it's undeniable that even if the Southern states had abolished slavery on their own by 1860, the Civil War would still have happened because abolition did nothing to address the issues of taxation, trade, and political differences between the two sections.

Calhoun, for all intents and purposes the guiding force behind the Nullification Crisis disagreed with this:

I consider the tariff act as the occasion, rather than the real cause of the present unhappy state of things. The truth can no longer be disguised, that the peculiar domestick [sic] institution of the Southern States and the consequent direction which that and her soil have given to her industry, has placed them in regard to taxation and appropriations in opposite relation to the majority of the Union, against the danger of which, if there be no protective power in the reserved rights of the states they must in the end be forced to rebel, or, submit to have their paramount interests sacrificed, their domestic institutions subordinated by Colonization and other schemes, and themselves and children reduced to wretchedness

In other words, the issue of slavery is what led to the problems of tariffs and taxation, not vice versa.

That said, if secession had not happened and if the radical abolitionists had backed off and stopped agitating, I believe that the slave states would have abolished it on their own in not much longer than it took to fight the war. It was the Age of Enlightenment. Attitudes were changing. Not to mention that England and France, the South's largest trading partners, were applying a lot of diplomatic pressure.

Absolutely ridiculous and not backed up by any historical precedent. Pure wishful thinking on your part.

Quote after quote from the leaders of the Confederacy indicate that slavery was central to their philosophy and something they were willing to fight to defend. Indeed, it was considered a religious issue, as backing for slavery was explicit in the bible, and several large schisms occurred because of differences in opinion on that issue in the major protestant sects of the time.

Furthermore, the emancipation of the slaves was a considerable social issue in the South - the aristocracy rightly feared violence if 1/3rd of the population suddenly had to be treated as human beings. The social upheaval in any transition there was going to be enormous, and not something that the vast majority of whites wanted to see.

At best it would have taken decades for that mess to sort itself out. Slavery in Europe was an entirely different institution, and wasn't a large part of their daily life by the time the Enlightenment brought the issue to resolution. It was largely a painless undertaking.

That wouldn't have been the case in the Antebellum South.

 

[Truthseeker420]

Jefferson Davis was born June 3, 1808, and he was the first and only President of the Confederate States of America. He believed in peace, free trade, and the American idea of self-government.

"All we ask is to be let alone." - Jefferson Davis

So he lived in a fantasy world. What about peace for the blacks? No such thing as free trade and you can't take Federal money and then betray the Union.

 

[demiurge]

As far as Lincoln's desire to start the Civil War, there's lots of reasons to think he had no anticipation of a war forthcoming. First and foremost was his cabinet, which was not staffed with hawks, but rather sought to be inclusive among the republicans and democrats. It functioned very poorly as a war cabinet, and was one of the main reasons that the Union had considerably difficulties in the first few years of the war, despite holding overwhelming superiority in men and material.

He also stated as such, numerously and openly. Despite his personal convictions which were clearly abolitionist in nature, he promised over and over again to not impact slavery in the South. He simply didn't want it forced on new territories as a way of balancing the national power structure. Indeed, he was aware of Southern plans to conquer and extend slavery to Cuba and Latin America. The Southern political bloc was consideringt his because they knew that the majority of new states would not be slaves - they therefore needed additional slave states to enter the US in order to ensure the continuation of their peculiar institution for upcoming generations.

His inauguration addressed his political take explicitly, especially the 'better angels of our nature' section of it:

The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it". I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Jefferson Davis was born June 3, 1808, and he was the first and only President of the Confederate States of America. He believed in peace, free trade, and the American idea of self-government.

"All we ask is to be let alone." - Jefferson Davis

So he lived in a fantasy world. What about peace for the blacks? No such thing as free trade and you can't take Federal money and then betray the Union.

Yes, what about peace for the blacks? The ones in Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri included. They offered to pay back the federal government, and Lincoln refused them. As for so-called betrayal, the Colonies betrayed the King and yet I doubt you're too upset about that.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

As far as Lincoln's desire to start the Civil War, there's lots of reasons to think he had no anticipation of a war forthcoming. First and foremost was his cabinet, which was not staffed with hawks, but rather sought to be inclusive among the republicans and democrats. It functioned very poorly as a war cabinet, and was one of the main reasons that the Union had considerably difficulties in the first few years of the war, despite holding overwhelming superiority in men and material.

He also stated as such, numerously and openly. Despite his personal convictions which were clearly abolitionist in nature, he promised over and over again to not impact slavery in the South. He simply didn't want it forced on new territories as a way of balancing the national power structure. Indeed, he was aware of Southern plans to conquer and extend slavery to Cuba and Latin America. The Southern political bloc was consideringt his because they knew that the majority of new states would not be slaves - they therefore needed additional slave states to enter the US in order to ensure the continuation of their peculiar institution for upcoming generations.

His inauguration addressed his political take explicitly, especially the 'better angels of our nature' section of it:

The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it". I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Of course he was itching for war.

"The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere."

Abraham Lincoln: First Inaugural Address. U.S. Inaugural Addresses. 1989

In other words, if he deemed it necessary to get his taxes and tariffs, there would be an invasion and the use of force.

 

[demiurge]

Of course he was itching for war.

"The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere."


In other words, if he deemed it necessary to get his taxes and tariffs, there would be an invasion and the use of force.

He didn't recognize the legitimacy of the succession. Therefore they must still abide by Federal law.

And he had Constitutional backing - the Supremacy Clause (Article VI, p2), and the guarantee of Republican government (Article IV, S4).

Now I agree the Tenth Amendment has been trampled to death by the Supremacy Clause and Commerce Clause. But I disagree that secession was legal simply by announcing it - that abolishes majority rule, and if you argue that, you get to anarchy, because there's no way to justify any form of government if simple disagreement is enough to renounce yourself from the government. Davis would state that was true at the State level but not the county level as part of the state, for example - and he'd have nothing to back that up but arbitrary inducement to authority.

The Confederacy should have dealt with the issue legally, as opposed to with firearms. They might very well have won. This was a court which after all put forward Dredd Scott. Which would have been the continuation of a horrible crime against humanity, but that was one which the people of the time were willing to accept to avoid the bloodshed that was to come. If it had gone through the US court system, the Secession likely would have been bloodless. But simply stating something is legal, especially something that hadn't been done in the history of the nation at that point, wasn't sufficient moral, ethical or legal justification for their later actions.

Remember, there was no current threat to slavery when the South seceded. It was the fact that in the future, they'd lack the ability to enforce slave laws in Congress due to their lack of political dominance that they enjoyed in the first 80 years of the country that was in question.

Ultimately there were two great tragedies to Southern Secession. One, of course, was the continuation of slavery, but that was brought to a head, and because they couldn't continue their oppression by victory of force of arms at the battlefield, it ended with a positive result. The North wasn't fighting for the destruction of slavery (though most would have preferred it) - the South certainly was fighting for its conintuance, as so many Southern leaders prominently discussed. It scared them shitless, because 1/3rd of their population was black and the civil upheaval would have been tremendous - as it was. They were rightly afraid of being murdered in their sleep.

But the far greater and lasting tragedy, is because the South cloaked their desire for the continuation of slavery in states rights, they discredited States rights for the next century and a half. That's a crying shame, and one more reason to be disgusted with the likes of Jefferson Davis.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Of course he was itching for war.

"The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere."


In other words, if he deemed it necessary to get his taxes and tariffs, there would be an invasion and the use of force.

He didn't recognize the legitimacy of the succession. Therefore they must still abide by Federal law.

And he had Constitutional backing - the Supremacy Clause (Article VI, p2), and the guarantee of Republican government (Article IV, S4).

Now I agree the Tenth Amendment has been trampled to death by the Supremacy Clause and Commerce Clause. But I disagree that secession was legal simply by announcing it - that abolishes majority rule, and if you argue that, you get to anarchy, because there's no way to justify any form of government if simple disagreement is enough to renounce yourself from the government. Davis would state that was true at the State level but not the county level as part of the state, for example - and he'd have nothing to back that up but arbitrary inducement to authority.

The Confederacy should have dealt with the issue legally, as opposed to with firearms. They might very well have won. This was a court which after all put forward Dredd Scott. Which would have been the continuation of a horrible crime against humanity, but that was one which the people of the time were willing to accept to avoid the bloodshed that was to come. If it had gone through the US court system, the Secession likely would have been bloodless. But simply stating something is legal, especially something that hadn't been done in the history of the nation at that point, wasn't sufficient moral, ethical or legal justification for their later actions.

Remember, there was no current threat to slavery when the South seceded. It was the fact that in the future, they'd lack the ability to enforce slave laws in Congress due to their lack of political dominance that they enjoyed in the first 80 years of the country that was in question.

Ultimately there were two great tragedies to Southern Secession. One, of course, was the continuation of slavery, but that was brought to a head, and because they couldn't continue their oppression by victory of force of arms at the battlefield, it ended with a positive result. The North wasn't fighting for the destruction of slavery (though most would have preferred it) - the South certainly was, as so many Southern leaders prominently discussed. It scared them shitless, because 1/3rd of their population was black and the civil upheaval would have been tremendous - as it was. They were rightly afraid of being murdered in their sleep.

But the far greater and lasting tragedy, is because the South cloaked their desire for the continuation of slavery in states rights, they discredited States rights for the next century and a half. That's a crying shame, and one more reason to be disgusted with the likes of Jefferson Davis.

So because Lincoln didn't believe secession was legal, they had to abide by federal law? The Supremacy Clause merely begs the question, and since the states did not abolish or alter their republican governments in any way shape or form that clause doesn't apply. Nor would it if they had, because the Constitution no longer applied to them once they had seceded regardless.

They did deal with the issue legally, and even tried to deal with the issue diplomatically. They only resorted to guns when Lincoln gave them no other option. As for majority rule, this country is not founded upon the idea of majority rule. The founders explicitly and continually rejected the idea of democracy because it rests upon the idea of majority rule.