Political Crossfire Forums

[eynon]

Simon De Montfort wrote: Eynon81 wrote: Simon De Montfort wrote: battleax86 wrote: Jehan wrote: flushman wrote: Very little know fact about lincoln, he had an order written that all the slaves would be returned to africa the US would pay for thier voyage.

The Emancipation Proclamation says absolutely nothing about transporting the slaves back to their homeland. Read it yourself, you'll find nothing on the matter. I suggest you examine the order before even jumping to conclusions.
Umm...I don't think he was talking about that. :-|

Actually there is some truth in what he said. Lincoln did support the idea of colonizing freed slaves back to Africa. Some where colonized to the state today known as Liberia. But he did not have a written order.

Wasn't Liberia set up by Monroe? :-|

Here ya go American Colonization Society

Lincoln's views on Colonization

right, thanks :)

[LockeAdvisor]

it was not originally about slavery. At the start of the war Lincoln said that if he could bring the states back into the union without a war, then he would not free a single slave. When the emancipation proclemation was made, the war became more about the issue of slavery.

Locke

[battleax86]

LockeAdvisor wrote: it was not originally about slavery. At the start of the war Lincoln said that if he could bring the states back into the union without a war, then he would not free a single slave. When the emancipation proclemation was made, the war became more about the issue of slavery.

Locke
Broken Record:

"For the South, the war was about the preservation of slavery. For the North, it was about preserving the Union until the Emancipation Proclamation. The root cause of the Southern secession and, therefore, the war, was the South's perception of northern attempts to restrict or ban slavery."

[George W Bush]

southern states thought they had 'the right' to keep slaves.

bill of rights contradicts that claim. Had the slaves been say, a Mule, the South would have been the correct. Instead, they thought they owned blacks which got them their asses kicked :)

[battleax86]

George W Bush wrote: southern states thought they had 'the right' to keep slaves.

bill of rights contradicts that claim.
No, the Constitution was actually vague on that before 1865.

[Jersay]

Slavery was important but it wasn't a major important issue of the American Civil War. The main reason was State and Government rights, and Economic activities of the Northern and Southern States. Lincoln only added slavery to emancipate the black people in the south because

1) they were a big population so if they are free, they will either rise up against their masters or escape to the North where they will join the Union Army.

2) Most Southern General had asked the Confederate government to emancipate the black people because they were useless otherwise, ending the idea that South Seperation was basically about slavery.

[TheCreepyApostate]

It was never about slavery. It was about the role of national government vs. states rights and preserving the union vs breaking up the US into smaller countries. Any valid historian will tell you slavery was not the cause of the war.

Northern people didn't care about blacks, not the majority of them anyway. You couldn't get those men to fight to free blacks as a humanitarian mission or civil rights issue. The main cause for those men to fight the war was the unfair business practice. The North had to pay for their employees why the South had unlimited free employment, that and preserving the union.

The Emancipation Proclamation only freed the slaves in the states of insurrection. It did not free the slaves in the southern border slave states living under the compromises. Any slave state that did not participate in the insurrection was still part of the union and got to keep their slavery for not being part of the insurrection. It also did not free any remnant or grandfathered indentured servitude in the North.

Go to Gettysburg, Antietam, or Harpers Ferry, and tell the historians there it was fought over slavery so they can laugh you off of the park grounds. :lol:

When Lincoln passed the hardliners took over and f#cked everything up. Lincoln wanted a gradual reunification and drop all former problems with the South. The hardliners wanted to humiliate and punish the Southern States which bred more hatred for the ex-slaves and groups like the KKK rose out of the reconstruction.

Blacks were not free. They were no longer slaves, but they had no rights, no homes, no jobs, no citizenship. How can you be free without these things. Blacks would not be truly free for another hundred years.

Clearly not a humanitarian war.

[TheCreepyApostate]

Simon De Montfort wrote: Mr 1 Percent wrote: If slavery was the issue why did they not include it in the constitution?

um ... they did.

Constituion of of the Confederate States of America

Article I Section IX line 4
"No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."

CSA .Constitution

Irrelevant as that Constitution was not recognized by the US, nor did they acknowledge their separation from the Union as it was entirely illegal according to the only valid Constitution, the US Constitution.

[DynamicUno]

Interestingly, South Carolina is apparently considering a rematch.

Quote: GREENVILLE, S.C. — From his rural home near Lodi, Calif., Cory Burnell keeps close watch over the news from South Carolina, and he likes what he sees. Turning the state into a promised land for conservative Christians will be easier than he had thought, he says.

Burnell, a 30-year-old financial adviser and founder of Christian Exodus, believes thousands of religious conservatives across the USA agree with him when he says their influence on government is diluted by liberals and Republicans who have failed to do what mainstream Americans elected them to do.

The answer he came up with in late 2003: Move like-minded Christians to one state: South Carolina.

...

Edwin Gaustad, professor emeritus of history and religious studies at the University of California-Riverside, on the other hand, said, "I would think it would have little chance of going anywhere unless there was a secession of South Carolina from the union."

That's an option Burnell and his followers would consider, although they say it would be a last resort.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-02-21-christian-movement_x.htm

[gavnook]

FCTE wrote: Simon De Montfort wrote: Mr 1 Percent wrote: If slavery was the issue why did they not include it in the constitution?

um ... they did.

Constituion of of the Confederate States of America

Article I Section IX line 4
"No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."

CSA .Constitution

Irrelevant as that Constitution was not recognized by the US, nor did they acknowledge their separation from the Union as it was entirely illegal according to the only valid Constitution, the US Constitution.

You are saying that the US Constitution forbids secession, and that the CSA and it's constitution was therefore illegitimate?

[TheCreepyApostate]

gavnook wrote: You are saying that the US Constitution forbids secession

No, In fact the US Constitution allows states to seceed from the union, but only with the approval of 3/4 of all the other states. The Southern States were in insurrection.

Quote: and that the CSA and it's constitution was therefore illegitimate?

The government of the CSA and it's Constitution were null and void from the start. Insurrections cannot be recognized. For it to be legitimate they need to follow the US Constitution guidelines for secession, 3/4 states vote allowing the secession.

[TheCreepyApostate]

George W Bush wrote: southern states thought they had 'the right' to keep slaves.

bill of rights contradicts that claim. Had the slaves been say, a Mule, the South would have been the correct. Instead, they thought they owned blacks which got them their asses kicked :)

The 1857 Supreme Court ruling of the Dred Scott case insured that slaves would never be citizens. Slaves were property not human beings. A slave owner could beat his slaves to death, it was entirely legal, and it would be no different than taking a hammer to your computer. They also deemed the Compromises unconstitutional and deemed blacks anywhere in the US whether considered "free" or not, were still property, not humans, and could be enslaved at any time.

The Bill of Rights covers US citizens, slaves were not. The Bill of Rights did not apply to them.

It wasn't just the South. The country was divided 50/50 and often even Congressmen had to carry weapons into the Capitol building for protection during sessions.

The US eventually won, but the Confederates had a good army for the most part and actually won many of the initial battles. Gettysburg and Antietam would put the war in favor of the US, but not without 70,000 men killed in those two battles alone. Most of them killed in just three days time.

[DD7]

what rubbish, the south was pissed cuz lincoln would not allow expansion of economic slavery in new states i.e eventually killing slavery all together. The south was an economic bastetcase compared to the industrial north.

For the average northerner, there was more motivation to fight cuz "free labour" black slaves were taking their jobs and they were worried about white slavery- since there were cases where white people were kidnapped and taken as slaves cuz it was assumed they were mixed. Quite a few slaves were mixed and looked white.

[battleax86]

Not quite. As I've shown repeatedly here, the cause of the war was the South's secession, but slavery was the cause of that secession. The North wasn't fighting against slavery until about a year after the war started.

[Misanthropy]

The Civil War was not just over slavery. Slaver was just another factor that helped fuel the war....and the abolition of slaver was the main result of the war, along with the reunification of the Confederate states with the Union

[Yojimbo]

Original post sounds a bit like the "rival economies" argument made by the Beards abt. 100 years ago. I tend to agree with the two fellows hammering home the point that the war was fought to preserve the union, and that the primary motivation of the South to leave the union was to preserve their "peculiar institution." So slavery had ALOT to do with it.

[TheCreepyApostate]

battleax86 wrote: Not quite. As I've shown repeatedly here, the cause of the war was the South's secession, but slavery was the cause of that secession. The North wasn't fighting against slavery until about a year after the war started.

Incorrect, the cause was the Northern States trying to tell the Southern States what they must do...... as well as the preservation of the Union.

The North never fought the war over slavery. There were probably a few abolitionists, but overall they didn't give a damn about blacks. The North had massive drafts to keep enlisted men and they were fighting to preserve the union against foreign threats, the Spanish, French, and British empires.

[Simon De Montfort]

FCTE wrote: battleax86 wrote: Not quite. As I've shown repeatedly here, the cause of the war was the South's secession, but slavery was the cause of that secession. The North wasn't fighting against slavery until about a year after the war started.

Incorrect, the cause was the Northern States trying to tell the Southern States what they must do...... as well as the preservation of the Union.

No, battleax86 is correct and your are wrong. SC, GA, FL, AL, MS, LA & TX all seceded BEFORE Lincoln was president. The north wasn't trying to tell the South what to do they just didn't want slavery to spread into the territories. Lincoln didn't intended to abolish slavery he just wanted to stop its spread. And it was that policy which convinced the above seven states to leave before action could be taken on the issue.

However you could make the argument the VA, NC, TN and AR seceded because of northern interference. Since they didn't secede until after Lincoln called up troops to attack the CSA for firing on Fort Sumter.

Quote: The North never fought the war over slavery. There were probably a few abolitionists, but overall they didn't give a damn about blacks. The North had massive drafts to keep enlisted men and they were fighting to preserve the union against foreign threats, the Spanish, French, and British empires.

Well I agree with a lot of that paragraph but the "never" part isn't completely accurate. The North was fighting to end slavery after the Emancipation Proclamation, even if not everybody in the North agreed with it.

[TheCreepyApostate]

Simon De Montfort wrote: No, battleax86 is correct and your are wrong. SC, GA, FL, AL, MS, LA & TX all seceded BEFORE Lincoln was president. The north wasn't trying to tell the South what to do they just didn't want slavery to spread into the territories. Lincoln didn't intended to abolish slavery he just wanted to stop its spread. And it was that policy which convinced the above seven states to leave before action could be taken on the issue.

However you could make the argument the VA, NC, TN and AR seceded because of northern interference. Since they didn't secede until after Lincoln called up troops to attack the CSA for firing on Fort Sumter.

My statement had nothing to do with Lincoln. It had to with Northern States deciding to ban slavery, the Southern States not going for the compromises, and the North pushing the issue upon the South. Who was in office is irrelevant. It doesn't matter who physically attacked who. It was an argument on the Senate floor and Davis withdrew Mississippi relunctantly due to their decision to push the issue. The war was about states rights, tariffs, and preservation of the Union. Ending slavery was a product not a cause.

Quote: Well I agree with a lot of that paragraph but the "never" part isn't completely accurate. The North was fighting to end slavery after the Emancipation Proclamation, even if not everybody in the North agreed with it.

The Emancipation Proclamation was just a tactic to shut down the South's crop production and cause chaos with slaves fleeing. The Emancipation Proclamation was not a humanitarian deal and it did not end slavery. The slave border states not taking part in the secession got to keep their slaves.

[David]

The Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in the South.Lincoln, at the time, didn't have authority to make any laws in the South so it was not valid.it was solely designed to cause chaos from slaves leaving their owners thinking they were free and thus causing the South to use valuable resources recapturing them instead of using those resources for the War.