Comments by "Patrick Cleburne" (@patrickcleburneuczjsxpmp9558) on "Ryan McBeth"
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@Ben00000 How about some evidence that actually speaks to the points you pretended to address?
(1) "Even if the Republican-led North had wanted to [abolish slavery], which Lincoln and the Republican party categorically denied
Lincoln: "It is nothing but a miserable perversion of what I have said, to assume that I have declared Missouri, or any other slave State shall emancipate her slaves. I have proposed no such thing."
1860 Republican platform: "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..."
Lincoln: "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
> "by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion."
Yes, Republicans did want to prohibit slavery in the territories (which wouldn't have freed any slaves, but it would have helped Republicans gain and solidify political power for their crony capitalist agenda.) The historically baseless myth is that they were threatening to abolish slavery.
> "now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States"
But nowhere even approaching strong enough to amend the constitution to abolish slavery, which was never a threat, as evidenced by the fact that none of your quotes say anything of the sort.
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"And why did these men abolish slavery? Not from any love of liberty in general – not as an act of justice to the black man himself, but only “as a war measure,” ...in carrying on the war they had undertaken for maintaining and intensifying that political, commercial, and industrial slavery, to which they have subjected the great body of the people, both black and white. And yet these imposters now cry out that they have abolished the chattel slavery of the black man – although that was not the motive of the war – as if they thought they could thereby conceal, atone for, or justify that other slavery which they were fighting to perpetuate, and to render more rigorous and inexorable than it ever was before." -Lysander Spooner
"The Union government liberates the enemy’s slaves as it would the enemy’s cattle, simply to weaken them in the conflict. The principle is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States." -London Spectator
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You might be interested to know that the abolitionist George Bassett said something very similar shortly before Lincoln's call to raise troops to subjugate the states that had already seceded:
"...the doctrine of coercion... is the destruction of the government, because it is a political revolution. It is a change of the whole spirit of the government, from a confederacy of sovereign States, held together by mutual interest and common attachment, to a consolidated empire, bound together by military force.
"It is also, to some extent, an efficient cause of the present dissolution of the Union. It is the belligerent doctrines and attitude of the dominant politicians of the North, which have precipitated this movement of secession. If the right of secession had been conceded at the first, the movement would have been deprived of its essential vigor and intenseness. The people, feeling that they had a conceded right to secede at will, would naturally have delayed an act so fearfully pregnant with possible evils. … Nor could so many States have been induced to follow the momentous experiment in such hasty succession. It is very doubtful if the movement could have been effected at all, if the right to make it had not been denied."
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@gunshotlagoon922 > They didn't want to negotiate anything regarding secession whatsoever
"They" meaning Southerners?
Here's what one northern abolitionist said in early 1861, "it will be remembered that, while the remaining States contributed to the public property of the seceding States, so did these in turn contribute to that of the remaining States. If it is found, in fact, that there is within the domain of the seceding States a disproportionate amount of public property, let the matter be adjusted by a rational negotiation.
"In reference to this, as well as a proper division of the common public debt, and all other similar questions, the seceding States express the most becoming spirit and honorable intentions, as appears from the following article in the Constitution recently established. It is as follows:
"'The government hereby instituted shall take immediate steps for the settlement of all matters between the States forming it, and their late confederates of the United States, in relation to the public property and public debt at the time of their withdrawal from them, these States hereby declaring it to be their wish and earnest desire to adjust everything pertaining to the common property, common liabilities, and common obligations of that Union upon principles of right, justice, equality, and good faith.'
"This certainly looks like the olive branch of peace; and if we decline it, and attempt the fatal policy of coercion, will not the civilized world and the impartial record of history be against us?"
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@ultimaterankings1154 > I will correct it to say "nowhere in their writings did they say that they are seceding because of the tariffs
But part of your original claim was "the constitution of the confederacy make[s] no mention of tariffs being the reason that they were seceding" and you suggested that was somehow proof that the South's cause in the war was slavery. Nowhere in the Confederate constitution did they say "We're seceding for [any reason at all]," (let alone "we're fighting this war for...") but you seem to think it still somehow proves what the war was about. So you're employing a double standard. Either differences between the US constitution and the Confederate constitution prove what the war was about even though there's no "we're seceding for..." or "we're fighting this war for..." statement in them or they don't. You can't say an additional mention of slavery in the Confederate constitution proves the war was about slavery but an additional clause prohibiting protective tariffs proves nothing about the war.
> a war that they fought to keep slavery
How do you figure the war was fought to keep slavery? Do you have any explanation or proof for this theory?
Why don't you accept exactly what BOTH sides directly said the war was about from the very beginning (as opposed to this indirect and convoluted and ultimately inexplicable myth based on documents that don't even mention the war), namely purely independence and self-government for the southern states versus the precise counterpart that the North euphemistically called "preserving the Union" (as if any union could be preserved by forcibly subjugating the partners of the union or as if any true union could exist on the basis of anything other than voluntary consent)?
Official, nearly unanimous declaration of US Congress: "this war is not waged... for any... purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States [i.e. slavery], but... to preserve the Union [i.e. maintain control over the southern states against their will, without their consent, and to deny them the right to independence and self-government]"
Jefferson Davis, April 29, 1861: "we seek no conquest, no aggrandizement, no concession of any kind [with regards to slavery or anything else] from the States with which we were lately confederated; all we ask is to be let alone"
> As for states rights, the Fugitive Slave Act took away the North's state rights
What states right do you think the Fugitive Slave Act took away? You do know the constitution expressly obligated the northern states to "deliver up" fugitive slaves, right?
> The South obviously seceded to keep slavery and to pretend otherwise is dishonest.
"[S]eceded to keep slavery" as if the northern states had been on the verge of amending the constitution to abolish slavery and the southern states seceded to avoid that amendment applying to them? You know there's no historical basis for that myth, right? And it's complete nonsense to say the southern states seceded to keep something when seceding did nothing to prevent any threat that remaining in the union posed. Sure, the southern states wanted to "keep" slavery in 1861 (as they did when they fought for their independence the first time in 1776 and as did states like Kentucky that fought on the side of the union and even at the end of the war still voted against ratifying the 13th amendment), but if the southern states actually "seceded to keep slavery" tell me what threat remaining in the union posed to the southern states' desire to "keep slavery."
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@ashcarrier6606 > your argument assumes that a course of action in order to achieve a desired endstate can never have an outcome contrary to what you wanted.
But that's not my argument at all. The southern states did not "secede in order to preserve slavery." And that's clear, because...
(1) That's not at all what they said.
(2) There was nothing that the Republican-led North was doing or threatening to do that seceding offered any hope of protecting slavery from. The issue is not, as you said, that the outcome was contrary to what they wanted; it's that even if they had achieved what they wanted (independence), that wouldn't have "preserved slavery" from any of the things Republicans had been doing or threatening to do.
(3) "their stated, WRITTEN DOWN ON PAPER reason[s] for seceding" were grievances that seceding never so much as offered any hope of "preserving slavery" from. Southerners never thought, let alone stated, let alone officially declared on paper that seceding would "preserve" their ownership of fugitive slaves that had escaped to the northern states. On the contrary, seceding meant forfeiting their constitutional right not only to those slaves, but most likely also to those slaves that would escape to any slave states that remained in the union. Likewise, Southerners never thought that seceding would "preserve" their right to take slaves to Kansas or any of the other territories. On the contrary, seceding meant forfeiting their rights as members of the union and to the territories where their right to slavery had been disputed.
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@ashcarrier6606 > Since secession did not help or preserve slavery, slavery cannot therefore be the reason they decided to secede.
But that was never my point. Not only did secession not help to preserve slavery, it didn't even, as I said in my first comment (after editing for added clarity) offer to do anything for slavery. Obviously they didn't secede to accomplish something that they didn't even think seceding would or even could accomplish.
Do you even have an answer to the question of what you think they seceded to "preserve" slavery from? What would have happened to slavery if they hadn't seceded that seceding offered any hope of "preserving" slavery from? The answer is clearly nothing, right? And if there was nothing that they even thought seceding might "preserve" slavery from, then they obviously didn't secede to "preserve" slavery.
> And it is contrary to what basically every governor and state legislator who made a speech prior to the vote to secede was saying.
How so?
> They openly declared secession to be about preserving an institution they felt was imperiled.
They never used this word "preserve" that you're so hung up on, not in any of the declarations of causes, not with respect to slavery. So if you want to impute this word to them that they didn't use themselves, it's on you to be clear about what you mean by it, because it's your word, not theirs. So when you say they "declared secession to be about preserving" slavery, do you mean they declared there was some threat to slavery that they were seceding to try to avoid? If so, what was that threat? Because none of the things they complained about the northern states doing with regards to slavery (at least nothing more directly related to slavery than protectionist tariffs for northern industries) were things that they said (or even thought) seceding might even possibly "preserve" slavery from.
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