Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The most striking example was the South’s embrace of national power to capture and return fugitive slaves, especially as implemented in the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. This law was the most robust expansion of federal authority over the states, and over individual Americans, of the antebellum era.
This law could hardly have been designed to arouse greater opposition in the North. It overrode numerous state and local laws and legal procedures and “commanded” individual citizens to assist, when called upon, in capturing runaways. It certainly did not reveal, on the part of slaveholders, sensitivity to states’ rights. Southern political leaders insisted that northern compliance with the new law constituted the key test of the Compromise of 1850.
A left wing blog as the basis of a thread on the History forum? I see this heading to POC very soon.
I wouldn't call Politico a "left wing blog". It has people from across the political spectrum. The author of this piece Eric Foner is definitely a leftist although he appears to be a serious historian and some of his books have been highly praised.
Dopo, hi.. the Southern states believing in the supremacy of state sovereignty is not a myth. It was simply inconsistent. But every political unit in history practiced hypocrisies and inconsistencies (so what).
I could submit that the Northern states, who were abolitionists.. hypocritically allowed Border state slave-owners to fight in their ranks.. and also continued to practice slavery in their national capital of Washington in the early years of the war. But again, so what. That's the complex reality of history. I'd also say that that within the South there were contrasting degrees of commitment to States Rights, with the upper South being most purely concerned with state sovereignty..Deep South being more immediately concerned with defending slavery. And defense of slavery & States Rights were not mutually exclusive.
My opinion, brief, dogmatic posts like this thread, don't really contribute to a holistic understanding of the Civil War. peace.
They were definitely in favor of one particular "state's right."
Heck, they favored it so strongly they started a huge treasonous war over the whole issue. A war that resulted in the widespread destruction of many of those states.
I'm still waiting for somebody to prove me wrong
I already mention the "Fugitive Slave Act" which was a big government push by the South on Northern States.
The proof of concept that some entity does not endorse a policy has to show consistent and ongoing intent in contradiction of that policy. In other words, if Jean Valjean steals a loaf of bread because he is starving, that does not automatically make him a thief of the same category as a mugger. That was an underlying concept underlying proportional response in more developed legal systems.
Creeping Federalism began early on, as a read of the Federalist Papers will attest. The balance between states rights and Federalism was something that was a constant debate, covering many issues.
What the OP does try to promote the common "all or nothing," "black and white" legalistic stupidity of Javier.
Personally, I find Harper Lee's "Go Set A Watchman" to show a very plausible and nuanced dynamic of the states rights issue in the 1950s and 1960s. "To Kill A Mockingbird" was a simplistic novel that could be read by the masses, and focused on a single issue. "GSAW" shows much more realistic sociology.
The states that formed the Confederacy were all about states' rights - when and only when those rights happened to jibe with their interests. Really, saying those states held a principled stand for states' rights is like saying that either the Democrats or the Republicans are really libertarian in outlook. They aren't, though each party shares a number of stances in common with libertarians. But that doesn't make that claim that either party 'supports libertarianism' an accurate statement. So too with the historical revisionism that holds that the South was for states' rights.
Now, let's look and see if we can find a common thread in the various stances of the South which directly contradicted their supposed states' rights ideals.
*There was the Fugitive Slave Act, which trampled all over the rights of non-slaveholding states to recognize people as people and not as property.
*There was their recognition that federal power existed as a check on state power so long as that federal government was run by a slavery-friend executive - as soon as the nation elected an executive to head that federal government who was not friendly to slavery, the South bolted, then set up their own federal government which held power over its constituent states, thereby demonstrating that they had no quibble with the basic concept of federalism.
*There was the constitution of the Confederacy, which explicitly forbade any individual state from every choosing to eliminate the institution of slavery within its borders.
Noticing the trend?
So instead of asserting that the South was all about states' rights, then attempting to then somehow append all manner of tortured excuses devised to explain away the myriad instances in which the South very deliberately and with full intent staked out positions that were antithetical to the very concept of state's rights, it is much more straightforward to note that the theme running through all the positions of the South was support for slavery. Where that interest was advanced by supporting states' rights, the South supported state's rights. And where that interest was advanced by standing in diametric opposition to the concept of states' rights, the South so stood.
I could submit that the Northern states, who were abolitionists.. hypocritically allowed Border state slave-owners to fight in their ranks.. and also continued to practice slavery in their national capital of Washington in the early years of the war.
It is a good thing that you didn't because the argument is specious on it face. There were Abolitionist in the north, but the casus belli for the United States was the maintenance of the Union. The United States could not, nor would not abolish slavery until the passaged of the 13th Amendment so there was no hypocrisy concerning border slave states fighting on behalf or the Union.
Quote:
That's the complex reality of history....
of revisionist history.
Quote:
the upper South being most purely concerned with state sovereignty.
State sovereignty to do what?
The systematic, wanton, and long continued agitation of the slavery question, with the actual and threatened aggressions of the Northern States and a portion of their people, upon the well-defined constitutional rights of the Southern citizen; the rapid growth and increase, in all the elements of power, of a purely sectional party, whose bond of union is uncompromising hostility to the rights and institutions of the fifteen Southern States, have produced a crisis in the affairs of the country, unparalleled in the history of the past, resulting already in the withdrawal from the Confederacy of one of the sovereignties which composed it, while others are rapidly preparing to move in the same direction.
...The Constitution distinctly recognizes property in slaves--makes it the duty of the States to deliver the fugitive to his owner, but contains no grant of power to the Federal Government to interfere with this species of property, except "the power coupled with the the duty," common to all civil Governments, to protect the rights of property,
Speech of Tennessee Governor Isham G. Harris
January 7, 1861
Quote:
My opinion, brief, dogmatic posts like this thread, don't really contribute to a holistic understanding of the Civil War. peace.
I have neither the time nor the patiences to post excerpts from leading secessionist who lobbied the border states and in whose efforts to cajole the states of the "upper" south as you call it all of which pertained to the the right to maintain or expand slavery.
Last edited by mensaguy; 09-10-2015 at 02:41 PM..
Reason: fixed quote tag
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
