The War of Southern Aggression

[Kevin_Kennedy]

The libertarian secessionists once again have failed to revise history.

Keep it up, guys: keep twisting and keep getting corrected.

A secessionist would be somebody who wants to secede from the Union, and nobody in this thread has made any such claim.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

And the Confederate States' aggressive policies and blatant disregard of human rights and liberties are also verifiable matters of history. They deserved destruction for their policies, and lo and behold they got it. The entire motivation for the rebellion was the preservation of slavery. Claiming it was the tariff is a joke; the tariff in 1860 was at its lowest level in decades. If that was the reason, they'd have seceded long before. No, as I have already thoroughly demonstrated through the declarations of the Confederate governments in this thread, their motivation was chattel slavery, for which they deserve nothing but scorn from posterity.

And Lincoln ran on a platform of raising the tariff, and while it was Buchanan that signed the actual Morrill Tariff Lincoln certainly supported it.

Morrill Tariff - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As for the Declarations of Secession, how about South Carolina's Address to the Slaveholding States:

And so with the Southern States, towards the Northern States, in the vital matter of taxation. They are in a minority in Congress. Their representation in Congress, is useless to protect them against unjust taxation; and they are taxed by the people of the North for their benefit, exactly as the people of Great Britain taxed our ancestors in the British parliament for their benefit. For the last forty years, the taxes laid by the Congress of the United States have been laid with a view of subserving the interests of the North. The people of the South have been taxed by duties on imports, not for revenue, but for an object inconsistent with revenue to promote, by prohibitions, Northern interests in the productions of their mines and manufactures.

Address of South Carolina to Slaveholding States by Convention of South Carolina

Kevin, the South had already seceded when the Morrill Tariff was passed.
The previous Tariff of 1857 was quite favorable to the South; no doubt pre-secession, the Tariff talk played a role, but most of the reasons given were slavery related. As Rogue states correctly, the Tariffs had been historically low in 1860.

In the snippet you provide from the Dec. 1860 SC convention, yes, Taxation is addressed, but a better portion of it deals with how important their slaves were to them in the whole matter. In fact, in their actual Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union, pretty much most of it was about Slavery.
But to draw on your citation...a few paragraphs later from your quote above:

"[At the time the Constitution was written] There was then, no Tariff � no fanaticism concerning negroes.

It was the delegates from New England, who proposed in the Convention which framed the Constitution, to the delegates from South Carolina and Georgia, that if they would agree to give Congress the power of regulating commerce by a majority, that they would support the extension of the African Slave Trade for twenty years.

African Slavery, existed in all the States, but one. The idea, that the Southern States would be made to pay that tribute to their Northern confederates, which they had refused to pay to Great Britain; or that the institution of African slavery, would be made the grand basis of a sectional organization of the North to rule the South, never crossed the imaginations of our ancestors. The Union of the Constitution, was a union of slaveholding States. It rests on slavery, by prescribing a Representation in Congress for three�fifths of our slaves."
​

The believed the Union rested on Slavery. They believed the Founders never could have imagined any proposed abolition of the system of bondage and their way of life.

"But if African slavery in the Southern States, be the evil their political combination affirms it to be, the requisitions of an inexorable logic, must lead them to emancipation. If it is right, to preclude or abolish slavery in a territory�why should it be allowed to remain in the States? The one is not at all more unconstitutional than the other, according to the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. And when it is considered, that the Northern States will soon have the power to make that Court what they please, and that the Constitution has never been any barrier whatever to their exercise of power�what check can there be, in the unrestrained councils of the North, to emancipation?
​

In Ironies of Ironies, above they cite the Dred Scott decision, the one that states even Free Blacks could never be and never were Citizens of this country. ..
More than of third of the populace of the South were Non-Citizens, yet they carry on about Freedom and Liberty, Contentment and Happiness:

"Indeed, no people ever expect to preserve its rights and liberties, unless these be in its own custody. To plunder and oppress, where plunder and oppression can be practiced with impunity, seems to be the natural order of things. The fairest portions of the world elsewhere, have been turned into wilderness; and the most civilized and prosperous communities, have been impoverished and ruined by anti�slavery fanaticism. ...
The very object of all Constitutions, in free popular Government, is to restrain the majority. Constitutions, therefore, according to their theory, must be most unrighteous inventions, restricting liberty.
....Contentment, is a great element of happiness, with nations as with individuals. We, are satisfied with ours.​

What they were concerned about, more than anything, was losing their free labor and subjugating their Non-Citizens, their Africans :

"We prefer, however, our system of industry, by which labor and capital are identified in interest, and capital, therefore, protects labor�by which our population doubles every twenty years�by which starvation is unknown, and abundance crowns the land�by which order is preserved by unpaid police, and the most fertile regions of the world, where the white man cannot labor, are brought into usefulness by the labor of the African..."
​

Yes, the Morrill Tariff passed after secession, but the southerners knew that Lincoln was running on a platform of raising tariffs as I said.

Nobody's denying that slavery played a part in the secession of the southern states, but to deny any role that tariffs played is to ignore facts.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Let us never forget that not every southerner supported the seccussion.

Whole states refused to succeed, and counties -- even counties in the deep South -- did not WANT their states to succeed.

This fact seems to be overlooked every time this issue comes up.

Just as there were copperheads in the North, there were supporters of the Republic in the South.

Another reason this civil war was so tragic, in my opinion.

Both sides drafted men whose POV was in opposition to fighting for their respective government's cause, ya know.

Plenty of these brave souls died for something that they not only didn't believe in, but actively opposed.

Which is one reason why a military draft is immoral, and completely opposed to the ideas of a free nation.

Tell that to America's "greatest generation." You are completely wrong on this.

 

[JakeStarkey]

The libertarian secessionists once again have failed to revise history.

Keep it up, guys: keep twisting and keep getting corrected.

A secessionist would be somebody who wants to secede from the Union, and nobody in this thread has made any such claim.

If you are defending the South and secession, then, yes, you have all made the claim.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

The libertarian secessionists once again have failed to revise history.

Keep it up, guys: keep twisting and keep getting corrected.

A secessionist would be somebody who wants to secede from the Union, and nobody in this thread has made any such claim.

If you are defending the South and secession, then, yes, you have all made the claim.

That's incorrect.

 

[JakeStarkey]

A secessionist would be somebody who wants to secede from the Union, and nobody in this thread has made any such claim.

If you are defending the South and secession, then, yes, you have all made the claim.

That's incorrect.

You are incorrect and have been from the very first time you posted on secession. You may be marble-headed on this subject, but for a message board, your manners are almost always impeccable. That doesn't mean you are right; rather you are politely wrong. But, still, I appreciate that.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

If you are defending the South and secession, then, yes, you have all made the claim.

That's incorrect.

You are incorrect and have been from the very first time you posted on secession. You may be marble-headed on this subject, but for a message board, your manners are almost always impeccable. That doesn't mean you are right; rather you are politely wrong. But, still, I appreciate that.

No, you're twisting my position on secession. You claim that I support secession, which is incorrect. No where have I said that I want my own state of Ohio, or any other state, to secede. Rather, I support the right of secession, which is not the same thing.

 

[JakeStarkey]

That's incorrect.

You are incorrect and have been from the very first time you posted on secession. You may be marble-headed on this subject, but for a message board, your manners are almost always impeccable. That doesn't mean you are right; rather you are politely wrong. But, still, I appreciate that.

No, you're twisting my position on secession. You claim that I support secession, which is incorrect. No where have I said that I want my own state of Ohio, or any other state, to secede. Rather, I support the right of secession, which is not the same thing.

Yet you never hesitate to twist historical evidence, KevinKennedy, all the time. Paper View has papered you and your position absolutely, yet you can't accept that you are out of step with what even the Confederates said during those times. Why is that?

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

You are incorrect and have been from the very first time you posted on secession. You may be marble-headed on this subject, but for a message board, your manners are almost always impeccable. That doesn't mean you are right; rather you are politely wrong. But, still, I appreciate that.

No, you're twisting my position on secession. You claim that I support secession, which is incorrect. No where have I said that I want my own state of Ohio, or any other state, to secede. Rather, I support the right of secession, which is not the same thing.

Yet you never hesitate to twist historical evidence, KevinKennedy, all the time. Paper View has papered you and your position absolutely, yet you can't accept that you are out of step with what even the Confederates said during those times. Why is that?

Paperview and I have different interpretations of the historical evidence, it's not me twisting anything.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Different interpretations is not the same as equal opinions, Kevin.

Paperview's intepretation is impeccably documented, absolutely clarifying, and 100% accurate.

Your's simply fails the tests of evidence and analysis.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Different interpretations is not the same as equal opinions, Kevin.

Paperview's intepretation is impeccably documented, absolutely clarifying, and 100% accurate.

Your's simply fails the tests of evidence and analysis.

No, it fails your test of analysis, but there's been plenty of evidence posted by myself and others who agree with me.

 

[JakeStarkey]

The "evidence" and "analysis" posted by you and your compatriots have failed every test.

That you refuse to accept that is meaningless. You are still wrong. Try that in a professional graduate history class and you would fail the assignment.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

The "evidence" and "analysis" posted by you and your compatriots have failed every test.

That you refuse to accept that is meaningless. You are still wrong. Try that in a professional graduate history class and you would fail the assignment.

Failed your tests, which is purely subjective, which you apparently can't comprehend.

Well I did receive an A in my American History class, granted it was not at the graduate level.

 

[JakeStarkey]

I bet that you did not try your argument on secession with your professor. However, an A is history is never anything to sneeze at, for sure. My opinion may be subjective but Paper View's evidence clearly is not and outweighs many times anything you and your compatriots have ever posted. However, arguing settles nothing. What part of American history did you enjoy the most?

 

[paperview]

I give Kevin A for effort.

 

[JakeStarkey]

I give Kevin A for effort.

I give KevinKennedy an A for civic virtue.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

I bet that you did not try your argument on secession with your professor. However, an A is history is never anything to sneeze at, for sure. My opinion may be subjective but Paper View's evidence clearly is not and outweighs many times anything you and your compatriots have ever posted. However, arguing settles nothing. What part of American history did you enjoy the most?

We never discussed the legality of secession in class, but I did make quite a few comments. We had to do a biography of anyone from history in that class, and I almost wish I had chosen to do mine on Abraham Lincoln. The Civil War is obviously my favorite historical topic to discuss.

 

[JakeStarkey]

That you have a real passion for the subject clearly is obvious, no doubt about that. What individual and what event do you find the most intriguing about the CW?

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

That you have a real passion for the subject clearly is obvious, no doubt about that. What individual and what event do you find the most intriguing about the CW?

Well I don't have any real interest in the battles themselves, but it should be fairly obvious that Lincoln is the person I'm the most interested in. Though that's mostly because of his reputation which I feel is not deserved whatsoever. And of course the politics behind the Civil War interest me.

 

[nraforlife]

Kevin - it was OUR Fort. It belonged to the Federal Government.

South Carolina had no more right to its possession than Kentucky does to Fort Knox

and it was worth 500K dead, right?