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We would be better nation if we started teaching out kids again
- Thread starter RCG Trader
- Start date
Quote from Artful D0dger:
If the Civil War was about slavery, why then did the South's offer to end slavery (for the purpose of averting the war), not avoid the war? Someone who maintains that the Civil War was about slavery must answer this question.
Furthermore, if the civil war was about slavery, why didn't Lincoln free the slaves in the north in his Emancipation Proclamation? Did he only believe that Southern slaves deserved freedom? LOL!
I'm not sure which offer to avert war you refer to. Is it Crittenden Compromise, the Peace Conference, Clay's Compromise of 1850 or another one?
It was illegal for Lincoln to emancipate slaves in the United Sates as Art 4 of the Constitution was in effect; it was repealed by the 13th Amendment. Lincoln could however emancipate slaves in states in rebellion which is what he did. There were many reasons such as giving the troops something to rally around,
allowed slaves to cross to the Union as the northern army advanced, keeping France and England from recognizing the CSA, as well as many others.
It is worth reading the thoughts of leaders who were there. Another example is from Confederate Major General John Gordon who in his book, "Reminiscences Of The Civil War", wrote:
" There is no book in existence, I believe, in which the ordinary reader can find an analysis of the issues between the two sections, which fairly represents both the North and the South. Although it would require volumes to contain the great arguments, I shall attempt here to give a brief summary of the causes of our sectional controversy, and it will be my purpose to state the cases of the two sections so impartially that just-minded people on both sides will admit the statement to be judicially fair.
The causes of the war will be found at the foundation of our political fabric, in our complex organism, in the fundamental law, in the Constitution itself, in the conflicting constructions which it invited, and in the institution of slavery which it recognized and was intended to protect. If asked what was the real issue involved in our unparalleled conflict, the average American citizen will reply, "The negro"; and it is fair to say that had there been no slavery there would have been no war. But there would have been no slavery if the South's protests could have availed when it was first introduced; and now that it is gone, although its sudden and violent abolition entailed upon the South directly and incidentally a series of woes which no pen can describe, yet it is true that in no section would its reestablishment be more strongly and universally resisted. The South steadfastly maintains that responsibility for the presence of this political Pandora's box in this Western world cannot be laid at her door. When the Constitution was adopted and the Union formed, slavery existed in practically all the States; and it is claimed by the Southern people that its disappearance from the Northern and its development in the Southern States is due to climatic conditions and industrial exigencies rather than to the existence or absence of great moral ideas.
Slavery was undoubtedly the immediate fomenting cause of the woeful American conflict. It was the great political factor around which the passions of the sections had long been gathered--the tallest pine in the political forest around whose top the fiercest lightnings were to blaze and whose trunk was destined to be shivered in the earthquake shocks of war. But slavery was far from being the sole cause of the prolonged conflict. Neither its destruction on the one hand, nor its defence on the other, was the energizing force that held the contending armies to four years of bloody work. I apprehend that if all living Union soldiers were summoned to the witness stand, every one of them would testify that it was the preservation of the American Union and not the destruction of Southern slavery that induced him to volunteer at the call of his country. As for the South, it is enough to say that perhaps eighty per cent. of her armies were neither slave-holders, nor had the remotest interest in the institution. No other proof, however, is needed than the undeniable fact that at any period of the war from its beginning to near its close the South could have saved slavery by simply laying down its arms and returning to the Union.
"
NB-the last paragraph.
Seneca
The fact is, no one but a PC revisionist would try to claim that the Civil War was about slavery. Lincoln wanted to deport the slaves to Africa or to Caribbean islands even in the last months of his life.
Quote from Artful D0dger:
The fact is, no one but a PC revisionist would try to claim that the Civil War was about slavery. Lincoln wanted to deport the slaves to Africa or to Caribbean islands even in the last months of his life.
Then how come the leaders of the CSA, the declarations of the states, and a Major General all say otherwise.?
The fact is the South put abolition on the table. If the civil war was about slavery, that would have ended it. Period.
Quote from Artful D0dger:
Those items say that Lincoln did not want to deport the slaves? Well, his own diary and his writings say otherwise.
No question Lincoln thought of deportation . However, when do plan to acknowledge that the leaders of the CSA state slavery was the prime causus belli?
I would, if that were the case. However, the fact is the South offered abolition to avert war. If the war were about slavery, that would have ended it. If you contend that the civil war was about slavery, and not the northern tariffs, you must answer why putting abolition on the table did not avoid war. You must also satisfactorily answer why Lincoln only "emancipated" confederate slaves, not union slaves. You have failed to address both of these items.
Quote from seneca_roman:
No question Lincoln thought of deportation . However, when do plan to acknowledge that the leaders of the CSA state slavery was the prime causus belli?
Quote from Artful D0dger:
I would, if that were the case. However, the fact is the South offered abolition to avert war. If the war were about slavery, that would have ended it. If you contend that the civil war was about slavery, and not the northern tariffs, you must answer why putting abolition on the table did not avoid war. You must also satisfactorily answer why Lincoln only "emancipated" confederate slaves, not union slaves. You have failed to address both of these items.
You have too hard a head when you ignore what the leaders said.
RE> abolition, to what do you refer? Congress offered it in the form of the the Corwin Amendment:
""No Amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any state, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State." --Joint Resolution of Congress, Adopted March 2, 1861"
Both houses of Congress passed it, yet no southern state voted for it.