Comments by "Patrick Cleburne" (@patrickcleburneuczjsxpmp9558) on "PragerU"
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@TheStapleGunKid I'm inclined to believe that just government derives its powers from the consent of the governed. I don't believe great-grandparents can give any meaningful consent for the government of their great-grandchildren, especially not after the great-grandparents are dead and gone. I don't believe majorities can give their consent for the government of political minorities. I believe if majorities could give their consent for minorities, then slave masters could give their consent for their slaves (and even potentially let them have a losing vote.) I don't believe that if someone is making or would make evil choices about how to govern himself that he has any less right to govern himself. I think evil people have as much right to govern themselves as anyone else. Maybe it's possible that wars could be justified to stop other people from doing evil within their own borders but only if there's a very direct campaign to stop a clearly defined evil and then go back to minding one's own business, and I'd be pretty skeptical even at that. I certainly don't believe that other people doing evil gives me any justification to rule over them. If I tried to enslave someone else in order to prevent him from doing evil (even immediately, let alone at some uncertain time in the future), I believe he would be justified in defending himself against my attempts to rule over him/enslave him, even if he were doing evil and I genuinely wanted to enslave him for the purpose of preventing him from doing evil. I believe accusations of evil, especially when used as justification for subjugating other peoples and/or wars, are frequently either false or pot calling the kettle black kind of situations. I believe there are lots of things that can be done in response to evil that aren't at all justified, so just because something in response to evil definitely doesn't mean that the person responding to the evil is justified in what he's doing, nor that the person doing the evil wouldn't be justified in defending himself.
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@TheStapleGunKid Since you said my previous response doesn't really answer your question, I'll try again. Obviously we're not seeing eye to eye on the historical facts and how to describe and summarize them, so I can't really answer a question based on a false premise, but hypothetically if the North had been on the verge of taking some sort of constitutionally legitimate governmental action that the South wanted to avoid, and in order to avoid the consequences of that governmental action the South had unilaterally seceded (and taken possession of military defenses, etc. in the South), no matter how much I might have supported that governmental action and no matter how much I might object to the way the South wanted to continue governing itself, I would recognize the South's right to self-government, and I would condemn any attempt to subjugate the South. Why wouldn't I? Am I supposed to believe that the right to self-government should be contingent on the seceding group not governing itself according to its own ideas? Am I supposed to believe that freedom means freedom to direct your own affairs so long as you direct them in ways that meet my minimum standards?
But it's not as if the North was asking the South to meet any standards in order to secede anyway. Nor was the North threatening any constitutionally legitimate government action that the secession offered any path to avoiding, especially not short term, but not even long term. Are you arguing that because the North might, however many decades later, have had enough votes to pass a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery -- there's no way the North would have had enough votes to ratify a constitutional amendment before the southern states would have chosen to abolish slavery on their own, but even hypothetically granting that nonsense -- and that based on the assumption that they would do that however many decades later and the assumption that the South would continue to resist it, that that has any bearing on the justifications of the war? Even after the Republicans in Congress passed (without any objections from Lincoln) a constitutional amendment irrevocably protecting slavery from any such future amendment, you think they still retained enough high ground to justify their war on the basis of the constitutional amendment to abolish slavery that they might have passed at some point in the unforeseeable future?
My latest attempt to answer your question isn't to say, however, that I would necessarily have opposed a war to free the slaves if the North had clearly recognized the right of the southern states to secede and govern themselves, which would have been the opposite of what actually happened. In other words, instead of saying, "You can keep your slaves (even short term), but you can't secede," the North had said, "You can secede so long as you free the slaves," and if the North's war efforts had clearly been limited to freeing the slaves, then that would be a totally different question.
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Fought and died to free the slaves? Nice myth! But the reality is, as my namesakes said in the middle of the war, that slavery was "merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties."
And that same reality was recognized by abolitionists like Lysander Spooner who said, "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,” and because they wanted his assistance, and that of his friends, 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."
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@TheStapleGunKid Federal taxes did not apply to everyone everywhere. They applied only to the people of the United States, people that, until Lincoln and the Republicans upended the constitutional order, were members of that union by the free choice of the people of each state.
But further, it's absurd to say Lincoln wasn't trying to tax the South just because he was trying to tax other people, too.
And it's further absurd to suggest that taxes are equitable simply because they "apply to everyone." A tax on tanning beds might "apply to everyone" but it will be borne far more by white people than black people. Similarly, a tax on international trade would disproportionately burden those sectors most dependent on international trade. Maybe that's good, maybe that's bad, but the fact that it "applies to everyone" is irrelevant and misleading.
And, of course, how taxes can not only be raised inequitably, but they can be spent inequitably, too, as, for example, on infrastructure projects that disproportionately benefit certain places and sectors over others.
And the South's secession was neither a rebellion nor was it done to "preserve slavery." If the southern states' secession had been for the sake of "preserving slavery," there would have been some threat that seceding promised to "preserve" slavery against, but there was none, nothing but inexplicable myths.
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The fact that the slave economy was integral to the production of cotton and the vast majority of America's exports and therefore particularly inclined the southern states toward free trade in opposition the the northern state's desire for protective tariffs and other crony capitalist measures doesn't mean disputes over those things or any of the other things Republicans were wanting to do that would affect the southern states were actually "about slavery." That's an absurd propaganda distortion.
As even the famous Massachusetts abolitionist Lysander Spooner said, "The whole affair... has been, and now is, a deliberate scheme of robbery and murder; not merely to monopolize the markets of the South, but also to monopolize the currency, and thus control the industry and trade, and thus plunder and enslave the laborers, of both North and South. ... And to hide at once, if possible, both their servility and crimes, they attempt to divert public attention, by crying out that they have “Abolished Slavery!” ...
"The pretense that the “abolition of slavery” was either a motive or justification for the war, is a fraud... 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. ...
"All these cries of having “abolished slavery,” of having “saved the country,” of having “preserved the union,” ... are all gross, shameless, transparent cheats – so transparent that they ought to deceive no one – when uttered as justifications for the war, or for the government that has succeeded the war..."
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Or for evidence of the same historical reality from the opposite side (which is to say from the South and strongly pro-slavery):
"The principles and position of the present administration of the United States the republican party present some puzzling questions. While it is a fixed principle with them never to allow the increase of a foot of slave territory, they seem to be equally determined not to part with an inch "of the accursed soil." Notwithstanding their clamor against the institution, they seemed to be equally opposed to getting more, or letting go what they have got. They were ready to fight on the accession of Texas, and are equally ready to fight now on her secession. Why is this? How can this strange paradox be accounted for? There seems to be but one rational solution and that is, notwithstanding their professions of humanity, they are disinclined to give up the benefits they derive from slave labor. Their philanthropy yields to their interest. The idea of enforcing the laws, has but one object, and that is a collection of the taxes, raised by slave labor to swell the fund necessary to meet their heavy appropriations. The spoils is what they are after though they come from the labor of the slave." -Alexander Stephens, March 1861
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