Secession re-enactments

[maxx]

Paulie: Also, when it comes to talk about "...saving the union..." or "...this nation staying intact."[[some might say..not "...allowing for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them to another...") you do realize this is codespeak for [[usually) the use of force to supress a peoples God given right to self determination, don't you?

You're argueing the case for the slaveholding states and you're talking about self-determination? Excuse me while I get a new irony meter.

You can't just condense the reasons for the Civil War down to a question of money. Why was there so much bloodshed over the extension of slavery into new states? Lincoln had nothing to do with bleeding Kansas or John Brown or "Uncle Tom's Cabin". Slavery had always been a moral issue among many Americans. And the moral conflict grew over time and with the change in slavery laws in northern states like New York. It makes more sense to say that money was at the root of the South's reason for hanging onto slaves. The Union would hardly gain revenue by destroying the South and Lincoln no doubt knew that when he appointed Grant.

[PaulieG63]

Maxx,

I don't know how to quote you using the blue captions [[ I am new to Detroityes...sorry.)

Becuase the south [[and north) owned slaves, are you argueing that that precludes the south from stating its case for self-determination? Would that line of thinking extend to the Declaration of Independence...when we argued passionately for the God given right for self determination, all the while holding countless thousands in bondage [[slavery) north and south? Could the federal goverment argue against the case for self-determination when it was legally brought into existence by slave holding countries [[states) that believed self-determination was a God given right? Talk about irony meter...

I agree with your assertion that it is impossible to condense the Civil War down to a question about money only, or any other sigle issue. Initially however, it is quite clear that the north had NO designs on southern slavery whatsoever. Each side resorted to rhetoric and appealled to base emotions. Following the money trail, however [[ I believe) brings one closer to the truth. The rhetoric tends to obfiscate that truth. Slavery was NOT a pretext for the war in 1861...and wouldn't be until much later...1863. Read my quote by Lincoln again from March 16, 1862. The south I believe, used the rhetoric of Lincoln having designs on the abolishment of slavery as a means to motivate the rich, southern planters, upon whom the war was likely to be financed.

I am also well aware of the long and arduous march of justice that would eventually be realized with the passage of the 13th amendment. However, while running for president, and after winning...Lincoln made clear he had no designs on slavery where it currently existed. Granted, the south knew which way the political winds were blowing...but Lincoln [[and the Republican Party which he represented) made clear he/they had no intention to interfere with slavery. Consider:
The 1860 Republican Party Platform which stated the following:
Resolved. That we, the delegated representatives of the Republican electors of the
United States, in Convention assembled, in discharge of the duty we owe to our constituents
and our country, unite in the following:
4. That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and
especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions
according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of powers on
which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depends, and we denounce
the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter
under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.

Furthermore, Lincoln himself made it clear that he would sign what has been called the "orginal 13th amendment" whereby if the southern states would return to the union, he would sign a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to own slaves where slavery then currently existed...without federal interference...forever.
Slavery was an issue... for the south...initially. Not so much for the north, until well into the war...1863 or thereabouts. Are you argueing otherwiase?

[maxx]

Paulie: Would that line of thinking extend to the Declaration of Independence...when we argued passionately for the God given right for self determination, all the while holding countless thousands in bondage [[slavery) north and south?

I don't know that the authors and signers of the Dec. of In. were even thinking of their slaves at that time. Slavery came up later when the Constitution was written.

{To quote someone else just precede the quote with [ followed by the word quote]. At the end of the quote put [/ followed by quote].}

Could the federal goverment argue against the case for self-determination when it was legally brought into existence by slave holding countries [[states) that believed self-determination was a God given right?

They were slaveholding states, not countries. We had already tried a confederation, and it had failed. I think the federal gov. could not overlook the growing moral outrage against slavery brought about by the abolitionist movement, various churches, and the popularity of H.B.Stowe's book. No matter what economy was at the founding of the nation, popular opinion eventually swayed the President and his cabinet. And in an age of nation states and empires, one didn't speak lightly about tearing a nation in two.
I would guess that Lincoln estimated the number of plantation holders were out-numbered by the number of slaves and small farmers and that the rebellion would be put down quickly. Whatever his feelings may have been about slavery when he became president, he saw slavery as the linchpin of the war later.

I don't see how you can compare the British empire headquartered on a small island and extending to far-off continents with a nation occupying one section of a continent bordered by two oceans and with the Appalachians and Mississippi already crossed. If the South had been allowed to seceded, what would have stopped other sections of the country from seceding? What would have kept the South from being absorbed by Mexico or parts of Maine, etc. from being invaded by Canada? Strength in unity was one of the Revolution mottoes and lessons that the early colonists had to learn to win the Revolution.

And you can't really talk about the South and the North having slaves as though it was the same thing.
There were much fewer slaves held in the North at the time of the Revolution and only one northern state, New Jersey , still had them at the time of the Civil war.
http://www.slavenorth.com/
"...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. An exception was New Jersey, where the slave population actually increased during the war. Slavery lingered there until the Civil War, with the state reporting 236 slaves in 1850 and 18 as late as 1860..."

[PaulieG63]

Maxx,

I've greatly enjoyed the back and forth of this thread. I think, however, the discussion has gone rather far afield. I originally weighed in on this topic mainly to assert that the federal goverment [[the north) neither initiated the war, nor fought it [[for the first two years, anyways) to end slavery. I have quoted Lincoln himself, as well as the Party which he represented, to back up my assertion. I have countless additional quotes from Lincoln, as well as periodicals of the day [[north and south) stating the very same thing.

If I am mistaken, and slavery was a proximate [[or even secondary) cause of the war from Lincoln's perspective [[prior to 1863) please offer up some evidence that says so. Lincoln wrote and spoke frequently about the war in 1861, 1862 and early 1863...and nothing I have found suggests anything to the contrary. In fact, everything I have read from Lincoln in that time frame states...it was ALL about preserving union...nothing more and nothing less. I am simply taking Lincoln at his word....

Thank-you for the "lesson" on quotations...I appreciate that!

Paul

[maxx]

Hey, everyone can join in. The Civil War is being reported and discussed online at a variety of sites. This page explains it all.
http://www.america.gov/st/peopleplac...ml?CP.rss=true

Paulie: Lincoln surely was much more interested in what would become of the federal treasury if the south was allowed to leave peacefully.

More interested than what? Since you were talking about the emotional rhetoric of "saving the Union", I have to assume it was that. Which suggests that you put saving the Union as secondary to the finances.

These [tariffs] were the fundemental questions of the day. Lincoln understood them well. None, however, are discussed by the public at large when discussing the war.

That's because S. Carolina's declaration of secession talks mainly about slavery. They saw Lincoln as anti-slavery and his election as an act of aggression by the North.

A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.