The C.S.A. Slaves and Mr. Lincoln's War

With every state that entered the union, there was a battle over if slavery would be allowed or not. The writing was on the wall

 

The problem with this part of our history is that like always, the winners write the history and it rarely reflects the whole truth. The division of races has always been beneficial to the ruling class and still is. It strengthens them and weakens us.

The truth about extending slavery into the new states is best explained by the man himself. Jefferson Davis from his book The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government:

“Southern statesmen may perhaps have been too indifferent to this consideration – overlooking in their ardent pursuit of principles, the effects of phrases.

This is especially true with regard to that familiar but most fallacious expression, “the extension of slavery.” To the reader unfamiliar with the subject, or viewing it only on the surface, it would perhaps never occur that, as used in the great controversies respecting the territories of the United States, it does not, never did, and never could, imply the addition of a single slave to the number already existing. The question was merely whether the slaveholder should be permitted to go, with his slaves, into territory (the common property of all) into which the non-slaveholder could go with his property of any sort. There was no proposal or desire on the part of the Southern states to reopen the slave trade, which they had been foremost in suppressing, or to add to the number of slaves. It was a question of the distribution, or dispersion, of the slaves, rather than of the ‘extension of slavery.’”

 

The problem with the whole "winners write the history" argument is that we have history written by the losers in this case, and they agree with @ImNotOliver too.

Yes, the South was against re-opening the slave trade, meaning the import of slaves from other countries . . . because they wanted to protect the domestic trade. Still, slaves, being human, reproduce, and the child of a slave is a slave, so slavery was still growing without international trade. In fact, ending the slave trade did virtually nothing at all to slow the growth in the number of slaves in the US (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1010169/black-and-slave-population-us-1790-1880/).

Davis is trying to play word games here, since "the extension of slavery" also meant additional slave-holding territories. A territory joining the US as a free territory would have to free its slaves and would increase the political power of the free states, whereas a territory joining the US as a slave state would participate in the domestic slave trade and would increase the political power of the slave states.

 

This gets into what I like to call slavery's dirty little secret. Breeding slaves was not only very profitable, but it was also easy and fun

 

And outlawing international slave trade made it even more profitable domestically.

 

Very true. Slavery was a disgrace and I would have fought for the Union had I been alive back then.

One take though was the "States rights" which was how our nation was founded. I don't believe slavery was a state right because it's a crime against humanity. The confederacy used it as a crutch but states rights in general are still very important.

 

In general (going to get really broad here), I like for power to be as locally-focused as possible. Individual > Local > State > Federal. This was just one of those cases where the Feds stepped in to protect individual rights from State "rights."

I think what gets under my skin about it all is that I actually have a lot of Southern pride, and I don't understand how such a short, embarrassing piece of our history somehow became the emblem of that pride.

 

I have not researched and your link didn’t provide info on the domestic trade of slaves. Therefore, I will logically assume of course the population would grow based on procreation. But again, according to the law of the land, then, a slave was property paid for by the owner. The argument was if slaves were not allowed in the new territories, these owners of property were being discriminated against.

I think hearing from both sides is important. I think the denial of the importance of state rights and harmful tariffs illustrates how the narrative was focused on slavery rather than all factors.

 

It shows the number of slaves in the US over time. Everything you see before 1807 is a combination of procreation and importation. What you see after is purely due to procreation. As you can see, there wasn't really an effect on the number of slaves.

Because the slave owners wanted to enforce the law of THEIR land against the laws of the land they were traveling in.

The South's own narrative focused on slavery over all other factors. Period. I'll say again:

The South's own narrative focused on slavery over all other factors.

The excuses about abstract "states rights" are largely a modern invention; the primary state right the South wanted was slavery. Southern sources at the time period prove his.

As far as tariffs go, none of the secession documents mention anything about tariffs. At all. They didn't list it in their causes of secession, but they listed slavery constantly. In fact, the only mention of taxes at all is a mention of taxes on slaves. Plus, the North paid the vast majority of tariffs, not the South.

If you are talking about the Morrill Tariff, yes, that was bad for the South . . . but that didn't pass until after the Southern states started seceding and it didn't even have the votes to pass until after secession. The Southern states would have easily beaten it if they stayed in the Union.

If you want to say that secession was not primarily over slavery, then you can only do so by ignoring everything the South had to say about secession.

 

I am from the North (Massachusetts). I have no real ties to the south other than moving there in my teens and going to college there. I'm definitely not a southerner by any means.

However, I go back and forth with the confederate flag. Half of me completely understands why people hate it so much given those horrible times for black people. The other half of me understands that many southerners (and I could be wrong here- just my experiences talking to them) see the flag as a symbol of their heritage. Does that make it right? Probably not. But it is an important piece of history.

 

I think most of the people who fly it do so to try to symbolize Southern pride and not out of racism. Hell, I'm willing to bet my dad still has one on his truck and/or motorcycle, and I know he sells them in his flea market booth, but I still remember the belting I got when I said the n-word in front of him when I was a kid.

I'm still going to pick fights-over-the-internet over it, but it is mostly innocent and it isn't going to get me to stop listening to Skynyrd or anything.

 

Yea when I first moved to the south I saw people with confederate flag stickers on their cars/trucks. I asked a friend about it and told him that I believed it was racist. He said something along the lines of "Oh no. I'm not racist. I love black people. I'm attracted to a black girl. This flag to me represents my ancestors that died in the civil war. It's just a family flag to me".

I didn't understand it at the time but I somewhat sympathize now. Either way, I can see both sides of the argument.

 

Someone put it this way and I'm using it for my post here.

When I was in public school, if you got in trouble in school you got in worse trouble at home.

Nowadays, if a student gets in trouble at school it isn't uncommon for their parent(s) or guardian to show up (sometimes with a lawyer in tow) to defend their "rights" and interests.

 

I get it. If I'm being honest, I'm less embarrassed by the Confederate flag I had in high school than I am with the Che Guevara flag I had in college.

 

First, so it’s clear, I don’t support the use of slavery. Second, I am not claiming to be a civil war expert.

Tariffs did play a role in the civil war. The word tariff was also called duties and there were others too. It was discussed in Georgia’s declaration which was written in part by Robert Toombs, who was on record at that time arguing against the Morrill Tariff. Lincoln is on record as being in favor of high tariffs. The southern state’s succession was about a lot, but broadly put, they felt slighted by the north and with the election of Lincoln they felt they could see the writing on the wall. I also find it interesting that the Confederate President was against slavery and was never a slave owner.

Anyone that has watched the last 10-15 years has seen history written that is biased and incomplete.

We let Holly Wood dramatize our history too much. I just know racism will never end if we keep it alive. I don’t think the ruling class wants it gone.

 

Possibly a minor role, but it was nothing compared to slavery. And, again, the North was paying the vast majority of the tariffs, not the South.

Georgia's Causes mention duties twice: once in reference to the high duties of the War of Independence, and the next to talk about how the majority of the US was now in favor of lower duties and more free trade. That's it. It has a lot more to say about slavery. A lot more.

According to Southern sources, secession was mostly about slavery. They are unequivocal in this.

I find it interesting . . . I also find it completely false. Where did you get that from? Jefferson Davis was certainly a slave owner and he was certainly pro-slavery. He owned over 100 slaves, and here are some of his quotes regarding slavery:

"African slavery, as it exists in the United States, is a moral, a social, and a political blessing."
~Davis

"My own convictions as to negro slavery are strong. It has its evils and abuses...We recognize the negro as God and God's Book and God's Laws, in nature, tell us to recognize him - our inferior, fitted expressly for servitude...You cannot transform the negro into anything one-tenth as useful or as good as what slavery enables them to be."
~Davis

"[Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God...it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation...it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts."
~Davis

"It [slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God...it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation...it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts...Let the gentleman go to Revelation to learn the decree of God - let him go to the Bible...I said that slavery was sanctioned in the Bible, authorized, regulated, and recognized from Genesis to Revelation...Slavery existed then in the earliest ages, and among the chosen people of God; and in Revelation we are told that it shall exist till the end of time shall come. You find it in the Old and New Testaments - in the prophecies, psalms, and the epistles of Paul; you find it recognized, sanctioned everywhere.".
~Davis

Again, this argument would bear more weight if it weren't for the fact that I'm exclusively relying on history as it was written by the Confederates themselves.

Everything I've spoken of comes from contemporary Southern sources, not from Hollywood.

 

There was a battle over the expansion of slavery into new States. There was no real battle over the abolition of slavery in the southern States.

 

By who or what power?

But not at the time the south seceded.

The constitutional power to outlaw slavery in new territories, not southern States.

Lincoln was also a white supremacist who viewed blacks as inferior. So if the northern political class were perceived as hostile to slavery, it wasn't because of their hostility to slavery per se. Rather, slavery was just another of several pretexts used by the north to consolidate and expand its economic hold over the States and the western territories.

So while slavery was certainly the proximate cause of the war, the battle for economic and political supremacy was certainly the higher level distal cause of the war.

Slavery was just the easiest attack vector for a northern political class that had been tirelessly conspiring against genuine republican government for decades.

There is no need, I've already read them. I'm well aware that the issue of slavery was nominally at the center of the conflict. But that's all it was: Nominal.

The real cause of the conflict was always economic control over the vast riches of America. Slavery was largely incidental.

 

Yes and public schools are becoming warehouses. Not only is the curriculum crap but discipline went out the window a long time ago. A friend's daughter after only ten years in education has called it quits, she told me that every day is like being a green substitute teacher. The kids are out of control, she said that there are plenty of kids that want to learn but are the behaviors of a few make it impossible to teach. She said there is no support from administration or the parents. She is heartbroken and disillusioned, she said that this is a national problem and a recurrent theme at many conferences she's attended. Teachers from all over the US share similar stories. She said when she resigned the administration made no effort to try to retain her, there was no exit interview because they probably didn't want hear what she had to say.

 

I stand corrected on Jefferson Davis’ position on slavery.

South Carolina threatened succession over the 1828 and 1832 tariffs. The compromise of 1833 stopped it.

I’d like to see your sourcing on the north paying most of the tariffs.

Thanks,

 

Something like 30% of teachers get out of the profession after their third year of teaching. Of course this isn't all just because of the students and parents, one reason for this is how new teachers are treated by the principals and administrators.

Teachers after putting in 3 years are difficult to get rid of. What some would call tenure though we don't use that term. So principals routinely assign brand new teachers the absolute worst students, the worst schedules, the worst assignments and do everything to try and make their working environment utterly miserable.

 

Have we lost the 10th Amendment
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
initially over slavery but other racial issues.


Consider Education or Health is NOT a power delegated to the Federals! etc.
So what powers are the States'.
Have we lost the 10th over "race"?
ObamaCare could have been the States'. 50 designs.


Moi

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The 10th Amendment effectively died with the Civil War.