|
AquaticSub -> RE: The South shall rise again??? (1/13/2011 10:50:22 AM)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: AnimusRex
Yes..it was encroachment upon state's rights... TO OWN SLAVES that sparked the war.
Trying to portray secession as simply a dry matter concerning arcane legal theories is simply dishonest. The Condfederates wanted to own slaves. And they would fight to the death to defend that right.
But don't take my word for it- here is an editorial in the Charleston Mercury, 1865, entitled "We Want No Confederacy without Slavery"
Ahem:
"It was on account of encroachments upon the institution of slavery by the sectional majority of the old Union, that South Carolina seceded from that Union.[]
We want no Confederate Government without our institutions. And we will have none. Sink or swim, live or die, we stand by them, and are fighting for them this day. That is the ground of our fight—it is well that all should understand it at once. Thousands and tens of thousands of the bravest men, and the best blood of this State, fighting in the ranks, have left their bones whitening on the bleak hills of Virginia in this cause. We are fighting for our system of civilization—not for buncomb, or for Jeff Davis. We intend to fight for that, or nothing. We expect Virginia to stand beside us in that fight, as of old, as we have stood beside her in this war up to this time. But such talk coming from such a source is destructive to the cause. Let it cease at once, in God’s name, and in behalf of our common cause! It is paralizing [sic] to every man here to hear it. It throws a pall over the hearts of the soldiers from this State to hear it. The soldiers of South Carolina will not fight beside a [historical term for black person] to talk of emancipation is to disband our army. We are free men, and we chose to fight for ourselves—we want no slaves to fight for us.... Hack at the root of the Confederacy—our institutions—our civilization—and you kill the cause as dead as a boiled crab. "
But I am sure they were just honorable gentlemen politely disagreeing over the proper size and scope of government.
If it was the right to own slaves that divided the halves, then why would Lincoln not care how it the matter was decided as long as the Union was saved, despite his personal views on the subject?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln_on_slavery
quote:
Lincoln made it clear that the North was fighting the war to preserve the Union. On August 22, 1862, just a few weeks before signing the Proclamation and after he had already discussed a draft of it with his cabinet in July, he wrote a letter in response to an editorial by Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune which had urged complete abolition:
quote:
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free. [7]
Slavery was the hotbed issue that so much of the country disagreed on that it broke a country already fighting verbally on all fronts and ready to fall apart. It was not to own slaves, it was the right to make the decision.
I, personally, think it would be gay marriage if our political situation was the same today since we are having a similar issue with federal law vs. state law.
ETA: The above is what I consider to be some of the strongest evidence of the cause of the Civil War. When we separated ourselves from the British, we made a crucial mistake in failing to decide definitively if we were a one nation divided into states or a collection of states that stood together as a nation. The difference, from governmental point of view, is quite different - Is state law supreme or federal law?
The Civil War answered that. Personally, I wish the Founding Fathers had gone ahead and abolished slavery at the time of Independence, something that they considered. It's interesting mental masturbation to consider what issue would have mattered enough to the country to spark the powder keg if slavery had already been resolved.
|
|
|
|
