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to the people who truly believe that the civil war was about slavery.
Anyone familiar with the Confederate states' various declarations of secession and their legislative deliberations leading up to secession knows they fought to keep slavery.
I'm a huge supporter of secession and tend to be a southern apologist. But yes, you are correct, Lincoln was opposed to slavery. But not because he cared for black people. He actually thought black people were subhuman and thought they should be removed from the country. The reason he hated slavery was because he thought it hurt poor white laborers by forcing them to compete in the market against literal slave labor.
In a modern context, Lincoln would probably be something of a white nationalist. And would have been fighting to stop cheap Mexican immigrants from depressing the white-man's wage.
"I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And in as much as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." - Abraham Lincoln
Secondly, in Lincoln's first inaugural address, he declared right from the start that he would not interfere with southern slavery. Nor did he think he had the power to interfere with southern slavery. He said "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."
Basically, Lincoln believed that it would require an amendment to the constitution in order to abolish slavery. Which if you understand history, was what eventually happened.
Lincoln did hope that the south would eventually abolish slavery. But he knew that in order for the south to abolish slavery, it would require changing their entire economic system. Lincoln wanted to push for economic integration between north and south(largely by expanding the railroads). And to industrialize the southern economy, because industrialization makes slavery no longer economically beneficial.
The southern states were not fiercely in support of slavery. The vast majority of people never owned a slave, and most of them hated the wealthy plantation owners. Lincoln's Vice President(and later president) Andrew Johnson was from the south, and his primary goal was to break up the plantation economy for the benefit of the poor white laborer/farmer.
The resistance to ending slavery was that the southern economy relied almost completely on slavery. And freeing the slaves not only would have meant a complete economic collapse. But it would have dumped four million uneducated, largely unskilled, and very angry black slaves on society. In some areas blacks would have significantly outnumbered whites. Democracy in that case would have been nothing but a racial headcount. No black would have voted for a white, and no white would have voted for a black. That wouldn't have been a democracy, it would have been sectarianism. The states that seceded first were the ones with the highest percentage of blacks.
As Calhoun said, "The Southern section regards the relation(slavery) as one which can not be destroyed without subjecting the two races to the greatest calamity, and the section to poverty, desolation, and wretchedness; and accordingly they feel bound by every consideration of interest and safety to defend it."
As a result of the Civil War, the southern economy did collapse, and it basically stayed in a collapsed state for nearly a hundred years. And instead of blacks being freed voluntarily as the south industrialized and slavery was no longer desirable. The south foolishly seceded, and Lincoln waged a savage war against his own country. The end result was death, destruction, and hatred that lasted decades, and to some extent still exists.
I would say this, the south would have been far better off if they had just stayed in the union. For that matter, the entire union would have been better off if the North had been more conciliatory. As many have explained, it cost twice as much to fight the Civil War as it would have cost to buy all the slaves. Let alone the 650,000 dead soldiers, the destruction of the southern economy, and the hatred between north and south, and between whites and blacks.
I don't find Lincoln to be admirable. I find his actions to have been foolish. He could have easily avoided war. The problem was, he was inexperienced and naive, being a lawyer from Illinois with almost no prior experience in government.
By Lincoln's inauguration, only seven of the fifteen slave-states had seceded. The other four states which would eventually secede, as well as the other four slave states which didn't secede(Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky), did not want secession. Nor did they want war.
The cause of the Civil War was Lincoln's aggressiveness. The only reason the Civil War began, was because Lincoln refused to give up Fort Sumter. Which was a tiny fort at the mouth of Charleston Harbor(one of the largest ports in the south), and which South Carolina offered to purchase from the Federal government.
Had Lincoln just let Fort Sumter go without incident, it is very unlikely that Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina would have joined the Confederacy. Virginia was by far the most important southern state. And those states only joined the Confederacy when Lincoln called on them to supply troops to put down the insurrection after Fort Sumter. In effect, Lincoln was going to force Virginia to go to war against South Carolina, and so Virginia was forced to choose and side, union or confederacy. They chose the Confederacy.
Had Fort Sumter never occurred. The Corwin Amendment would have gone through and the north would have provided some guarantees and protections to the southern states. The south would have rejoined the union, would have been integrated into the northern economy and thus industrialized. The people in the south would either have gradually emancipated the slaves, or the government would have bought the slaves and relocated them.
In either case, hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved, billions of dollars wouldn't have been wasted, and there would have been far less racial animosity, not only in the past, but to this day.
Instead, the bumbling idiot and hypocrite Lincoln led us into the deadliest war in US history. And not for the purpose of freeing a single slave, his purpose was to preserve the union. As Lincoln said, "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it."
I despise Lincoln with a passion. He is easily the worst president in US history.
A lot of your post is out of context.
Lincoln was a man that fell in to the trappings of his era and he is easily a racist by 2015 standards - as was just about anyone you can name of that era.
Context...you are missing it.
In the 1st quote, you are ignoring that it was a campaign speech where the Democrat Stephen Douglas had been telling voters that Lincoln wanted to "force" amalgamation (the interracial marriages) to push racial equality (something that the vast majority of whites in Illinois opposed in 1858). Lincoln was responding not only probably how his heart was, but in a way that many if not most people in Illinois could agree with.
To paraphrase Lincoln in better context: "No I do not want to force whites to marry blacks to force equality, no I don't believe in equality of the races, settle down. I support the right of all men, white and black, to the product of his labor."
You ignore the fact that about a third of CSA families DID own slaves.
You ignore the fact that southern politicians, newspapers, clergyman, and other leaders made it clear to the poor white southern Yeoman farmers that slaves if freed would ravage the free whites, pillage the countryside seeking revenge, rape your wife and marry your daughter. That radical republicans like Lincoln wanted abolitionist preachers to force amalgamation, etc...
The South was in fact fiercely pro-slavery in 1860 when secession started.
It's irrelevant. If the police search your home with no probable cause and they find drugs, that does not change the fact that they violated your 4th amendment rights. That the South was using their rights for something morally repugnant does not change the fact that those were their rights. The federal government has continued doing this all the way up until the present day, where they use the withholding of funds to force states to comply with federal decisions that they have no constitutional authority to impose on the states.
I have provided over half a dozen examples of the southern states reducing state's rights by increasing the Federal Government to help slavery in the decade leading up to the secession - and I can produce more if need be.
The south was highly inconsistent on state's rights and only consistent on slavery.
Every single reason South Carolina gave for breaking off of the country was about slavery and/or black people. Many of their complaints were that the federal government wasn't effective at eliminating northern states from making laws to help blacks (ie some northern states allowed free blacks to vote - hence the south upset that the north was exercising a version of state's rights, which helped free blacks in the north).
This obsessive focus you have with the idea that unavoidable war between slave states and free states hinged solely on Lincoln's sayings or doings; or Fort Sumter for that matter is, frankly, ridiculous. About as ridiculous as the idea that the institution of slavery needed to be coddled warmly until it just faded away for some vague reason(s). Your claim that slavery would have simply ceased by 1870 is lacking in proof; and there is no evidence that the former slave states would have tolerated negroes enjoying equal political or social standing.
The way it unfolded, with breaking the constitution(no amendment process. They just up and abolished parts), it created a lot of resentment, that still rages today, 150 years later.
You force anyone to do anything and it is going to cause a lot of resentment, with a bunch of blowback.
To paraphrase Lincoln in better context: "No I do not want to force whites to marry blacks to force equality, no I don't believe in equality of the races, settle down. I support the right of all men, white and black, to the product of his labor."
Look, Lincoln to the very end thought that blacks were inferior to whites. Lincoln till the very end believed that blacks and whites could never live together in society. That the differences that nature had made would lead to perpetual tension, and that blacks and whites should be separated for their own good.
Lincoln didn't want to end slavery for the benefit of blacks, he wanted to end slavery for the benefit of whites. He said it repeatedly, and to the very end.
The full quote about saving the union goes... "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union."
Then Lincoln addressed what would have been the equivalent of the NAACP in August 1862, and said...
"You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word we suffer on each side. If this is admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated."
There is no evidence whatsoever to believe that Lincoln was the kind of egalitarian that you imagine. And even Frederick Douglass said that Lincoln was not the great egalitarian or emancipator that we imagine. In a speech in 1876 he said...
"Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model. In his interests, in his associations, in his habits of thought, and in his prejudices, he was a white man.
He was preeminently the white man’s President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men. He was ready and willing at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice the rights of humanity in the colored people to promote the welfare of the white people of this country. In all his education and feeling he was an American of the Americans. He came into the Presidential chair upon one principle alone, namely, opposition to the extension of slavery. His arguments in furtherance of this policy had their motive and mainspring in his patriotic devotion to the interests of his own race. To protect, defend, and perpetuate slavery in the states where it existed Abraham Lincoln was not less ready than any other President to draw the sword of the nation. He was ready to execute all the supposed guarantees of the United States Constitution in favor of the slave system anywhere inside the slave states. He was willing to pursue, recapture, and send back the fugitive slave to his master, and to suppress a slave rising for liberty, though his guilty master were already in arms against the Government."
If you actually listen to what Lincoln says and what others say of Lincoln. You'll realize that Lincoln sounds a lot more like Adolf Hitler than Martin Luther King Jr. Lincoln by any modern definition would be a white nationalist.
Quote:
Originally Posted by michiganmoon
You ignore the fact that about a third of CSA families DID own slaves.
You ignore the fact that southern politicians, newspapers, clergyman, and other leaders made it clear to the poor white southern Yeoman farmers that slaves if freed would ravage the free whites, pillage the countryside seeking revenge, rape your wife and marry your daughter. That radical republicans like Lincoln wanted abolitionist preachers to force amalgamation, etc...
The South was in fact fiercely pro-slavery in 1860 when secession started.
I actually agree with this statement. It is the only thing that explains why so many people who never owned a slave, who never wanted to own a slave, who hated slavery, or who may have never even came into contact with a slave, would want to protect the institution of slavery.
As for the 1/3rd number, that is debatable. In Maryland, only 12% of families owned a slave. Virginia it was 26%. If we use Louisiana as a point of reference. The state was 47% slave, but only 29% of white families owned slaves. The non-slaveholding whites were terrified that a bunch of free blacks running around would lead to endless reprisals against their former masters, or against white people in general.
If these freed blacks began demanding a right to vote, and got a right to vote. Then every vote would be effectively a "racial headcount". With half of the population always voting against the interests of the other half. And to explain why South Carolina was the first state to secede. The link below shows that 57% of the population of South Carolina were slaves(the highest percentage in the country). That means blacks, if freed, would outnumber whites. Whites felt that they had to keep blacks in bondage, otherwise they themselves wouldn't be safe.
Which goes to my point. It wasn't that whites in the south overwhelmingly supported slavery. They didn't. The majority of whites in the south hated slavery. The problem was that there were just too many slaves.
As Jefferson said of slavery, "But, as it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other."
Basically, blacks/slaves are the wolf, and whites knew they could neither hold blacks forever, nor safely let them go. For their own self-preservation, they maintained slavery, even in their abhorrence of it.
Here is a good speech by Frederick Douglass that explains the problem....
"These objections (to abolishing slavery) are often urged with a show of sincere solicitude for the welfare of the slaves themselves. It is said, what will you do with them? They can't take care of themselves; they would all come to the North; they would not work; they would become a burden upon the State, and a blot upon society; they'd cut their masters' throats; they would cheapen labor, and crowd out the poor white laborer from employment; their former masters would not employ them, and they would necessarily become vagrants, paupers and criminals, overrunning all our alms houses, jails and prisons. The laboring classes among the whites would come in bitter conflict with them in all the avenues of labor, and regarding them as occupying places and filling positions which should be occupied and filled by white men; a fierce war of races would be the inevitable consequence."
I think its kind of funny that the same concerns that people had in the 1860's, are basically still the concerns that many people have to this day. Which might explain the rationale behind Lincoln's desire to separate the races "for their own good".
This obsessive focus you have with the idea that unavoidable war between slave states and free states hinged solely on Lincoln's sayings or doings; or Fort Sumter for that matter is, frankly, ridiculous. About as ridiculous as the idea that the institution of slavery needed to be coddled warmly until it just faded away for some vague reason(s). Your claim that slavery would have simply ceased by 1870 is lacking in proof; and there is no evidence that the former slave states would have tolerated negroes enjoying equal political or social standing.
Look, America had slavery for "four-score and seven years"(IE, 87 years) before Lincoln gave his famous speech. By the time the war broke out, the country had nearly tripled the number of states(from 13 to 34) through compromise. Prior to Fort Sumter, eight slave-states remained in the union. And four slave-states remained in the union throughout the war.
I originally believed like you that war was inevitable. But after a closer examination of the facts, I just don't see it. And it seems like the supposed "inevitability of war" is used more as an excuse than a reason.
Basically, if it was inevitable, then Lincoln was just doing what he had to do, and was the great savior of the union. If the war wasn't inevitable, then Lincoln was a blundering idiot who has countless lives on his hands.
So the question is, "Was the Civil War inevitable?".
Lets look at the supposed cause of the Civil War, "slavery". If slavery was what made the Civil War inevitable, then why did four slave states remain in the Union, and actually fought against the Confederacy? Why did a majority of slave-states not join the Confederacy until after Fort Sumter? What was it that Virginia was hoping to accomplish by remaining in the union as long as it did? Would Virginia have joined the Confederacy if it wasn't for Fort Sumter? Would the Confederacy have wanted to fight a war without Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee(being that the Confederate capital became Richmond, Virginia)?
The truth is, the reason why so many slave states either did stay in the union, or were very hesitant to leave, was because no one really wanted to leave the union. What the Southern states wanted were protections from the Federal government. That the Federal government would not intervene in the institutions of the Southern states. And would not create laws which had the sole intent of harming the interests of the southern states.
Virginia stayed in hopes of the ratifying the "Corwin amendment". And had the events at Fort Sumter not occurred, it is very likely that the Corwin amendment would have passed. Lincoln supported it, and it had already passed a Congress which didn't even have representation from the southern seceding states.
In my opinion, and based on the facts, two events ultimately caused the Civil War. The first was the firing on Fort Sumter, and the second was Lincoln calling up troops to invade and suppress the south after Fort Sumter. Had either of these things not happened, war would have been averted.
"Governor John Letcher of Virginia, whose state had been requested to furnish three regiments totaling 2,340 men and officers, had stated in the past his intent for his state to remain neutral. He replied to Lincoln that since the latter had "chosen to inaugurate civil war, he would be sent no troops from the Old Dominion."
The question then becomes, why did Lincoln refuse to surrender a fort in South Carolina which had no strategic value, and was indefensible in the case of a war? Why did Lincoln issue a proclamation that would require slave-slates, such as Virginia and Tennessee, to send troops for the purpose of, as the governor of Tennessee put it, "subjugating their Southern brethren"?
Weren't both of these actions blunders on the part of Lincoln? Didn't Lincoln take the road of threats and aggression, instead of peace and conciliation? Thus, isn't it accurate to say that the Civil War, and all its destruction of lives and property, could be placed squarely on the incompetence and underestimations of Abraham Lincoln?
As for slavery and its eventual abolition. Lets understand a very important fact, slavery would not exist today regardless of there having been a Civil War. No other country on this Earth fought a war to end slavery. And slavery was on its way out as an institution by the mid 1800's. Britain had abolished slavery in all its territories by 1833. France abolished slavery in all its territories by 1848. Russia abolished serfdom in 1861. The last major country to have slavery was Brazil, and it began emancipation in 1871.
Brazil was the largest importer of slaves on the planet, and to this day has the highest percentage of ex-slaves as a percentage of their population(about half of Brazil's population is black, compared to only 13% of America's population).
The likelihood that America would keep African slavery after every other country had abolished it, is simply unreasonable. If the United States hadn't begun gradual emancipation by 1871(when Brazil did). At the very latest it would have occurred by 1873, when the cotton market collapsed.
What also needs to be understood, is that while slavery did get abolished in 1865, it wasn't as if life for blacks suddenly got better. In fact, the south really didn't change that much after slavery. Black slaves merely became share-croppers in a collapsed southern economy. Oppressive laws, segregation, and the rise of the KKK made the south feel eerily similar to the days of slavery, with possibly even less security. And after the failure of reconstruction, many in the north began to question whether or not the war had even been worth fighting.
If we again use the example of Brazil. Lets understand that Brazil imported far more slaves than America. And slaves in Spanish/Portuguese colonies were treated far more harshly than American slaves.
But there has been far less racism in Brazil than in America. Why? In my opinion, its because Brazil voluntarily freed its slaves.
Most of the racism and violence that came about in the post-war south, was caused by the fact that the Southerners were bitter about losing a war. These southerners had lost their fathers and brothers, their homes, their money, and their honor. And to add insult to injury, after the North won the war, they occupied the south and denied the southerners a right to self-government. Then elevated northern carpetbaggers and blacks to political power, while denying many whites a right to vote or hold office. This created resentment, which created a cycle of violence.
Thus, not only do I blame Lincoln for the death and destruction of the Civil War. I blame Lincoln for all the death and destruction which occurred as a result of the hatred caused by the Civil War. And I think blacks to this very day would have been far better off if they had been freed voluntarily.
Lincoln was the worst president in US history. I cannot comprehend why anyone thinks so highly of him. I just chalk it up to ignorance. Our government loves to keep us ignorant, and to make Lincoln into some kind of martyr who just wanted to free the slaves from those evil southerners.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. Its propaganda people, propaganda.
When Lincoln saw no chance of an amendment to the constitution, he abolished the parts he didn't like.
This caused a civil war.
Then after the civil war, the federal government did not recognize the elected officials in the southern confederate states.
Reconstruction, placed the federal governments appointed people as rulers and deciders, ignoring the elected officials. Had they not, the 13th & 14th amendments would not have passed.
So according to the US Constitution, the Constitution was not only broken, it was abolished.
I find slavery morally repugnant in every possible way, but I find tyrannical government equally repugnant. That said, I'd have fought for the Confederacy vs the Union for the same ideological, intellectual and moral reasons as I'd have fought with the Continental Army vs King George III during the American Revolution.
Never forget, when the American colonials declared independence from England....the colonies were slave states. Both American and England had white and black slaves aplenty. The greatest President this country STILL has ever had, George Washington, owned slaves. The author of the Declaration of Independence owned slaves...lots of them. But the cause of the American Revolution was no less just based on the personal sins of the people fighting for that cause.
The American Revolution occurred because the "federal government" then was using economic harm to force its will upon the lesser, more backwards farmers and land owners in that jerkwater colony across the ocean. And the majority of King George III's tyrannies were based on protectionist economics for Mother England, as well as raising tax revenue to fund profligate government spending.
The parallels of England's tariffs circa 1751-1776 (first currency act was in 1751 and the worst was 1764) and the tariffs of 1820-1832 from our own federal government are very illustrative, as is the parallel in reaction from the group most harmed by those tariffs. There are tons of other similarities, but the bottom line is that in the American Revolution, the people fighting against tyranny won, and in the US Civil War, they lost.
I would always fight for the side opposing tyranny. Also of note, most soldiers fighting for the Confederacy were not slave owners, because owning slaves = rich, and rich people don't fight in wars. They start them, they watch them, they even manage/supervise them....but they don't fight in them.
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