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Old 02-01-2017, 05:13 AM
 
Location: Pennsylvania
5,725 posts, read 11,688,679 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by djmilf View Post
I've heard this claim, that the Southern states were afraid of a constitutional amendment imposed upon them that would have ended slavery, and had always believed it before. But I now wonder if this is just post-war rationalization.

Consider that an amendment must be ratified by three fourths of the states, and that there were 14 states in 1860 that allowed slavery. If one assumes that no slave state would ever vote for an anti-slavery amendment, and that every non-slave state would definitely vote for such an amendment, then there would need to be 52 non-slave states in order to pass an anti-slavery amendment. That would mean that such an amendment would pass when there were 56 states.
This is why secession was so irrational and counterproductive to the slaveholding states. They gave up the constitutional protection of slavery and allowed emancipation to be forced through under a military process.

It wouldn't necessarily have taken that many states to overturn slavery though. One of the hopes of the free soilers (who also wanted the fugitive slave laws repealed) was that enough slaves in border states would escape to freedom that the states themselves would choose emancipation, just as the northern states had done in the late 18th century/early 19th century. Either way, they were thinking the process would take decades. Secession sped it up exponentially, in one of American history's more ironic twists.
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Old 02-01-2017, 07:04 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by djmilf View Post
...then there would need to be 52 non-slave states...
D'OH! I meant 42, not 52!
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Old 02-01-2017, 07:09 AM
 
Location: New York Area
34,750 posts, read 16,767,477 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by justanokie View Post
As for Ft Sumter, the Confederacy warned Lincoln that any attempt to put more men or weapon in Ft Sumter would be an act of war. He used that to force them into firing the first shots. He got his war he wanted.
Sumter was U.S. property. The Confederacy had no right to "warn" the Union to do or not do anything.
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Old 02-01-2017, 07:20 AM
 
16,212 posts, read 10,786,749 times
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On the OP question, I don't dislike or "like" Lincoln, however, I respect him as a man faced with difficult decisions in a trying period in the history of our nation. I don't think of him as some sort of mythical figure - I only think of him as a man.

Quote:
Originally Posted by HOSS429 View Post
slavery would have run it`s course soon enuff and would not have required the loss of over 600 thousand men including dozens of my distant cousins who fill this family graveyard and most likely never ever even saw a black person much less a slave ,,my family did not die protecting slavery ,, they died defending their homes from a northern invasion .. i never saw a black person till i was 13 years old and i live in the deep south ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by phetaroi View Post
slavery would have run it's course. like today when there is no slavery in the world?
and for those who were slaves at the time, we should have just said, "Oh hey, don't worry. Slavery will run its course after a few more generations of your children have been slaves their whole lives."

The South could have chosen to be somewhat more moral and not believe that OWNING PEOPLE was acceptable.

Moderator cut: Cutting out Political remark.
On HOSS's post, I agree with phetaroi. I am black. Twelve of my own ancestors also fought in the civil war and I have the pics of their graves. My 4th great grandmother was nearly kidnapped by Confederates in the 1860s like a lot of free black Pennsylvanians during that era - it is referred to as an era of terror for the free populations of border states like PA. Many free black people actually were kidnapped during this time in PA in particular.

I personally have no sympathy for southerners. Lincoln did not start a war with them. He did not initially invade them. They were a part of our country. They decided to rebel and attacked Fort Sumter. They got what they deserved. I also don't think that slavery would have "run its course" in places like SC where many of my ancestors toiled in slavery for generations. If it did "run its course" the course would not have ended for another 100 years. I probably would be a slave today if that had been allowed to occur.

I admire the abolitionist and especially the free black population who implored Lincoln to make it a war "about slavery" since that is really what it was about for the south. Though HOSS, you ancestors may not have owned slaves, they wanted the opportunity to do so and I think it is willful denial of many supporters of "the cause" to believe otherwise in a majority of the Confederate states.

Quote:
Originally Posted by stanley-88888888 View Post
he was an abolitionist but didnt believe in fair rights. baby steps, i guess.
On this, no white abolitionists that I'm aware of held completely non-racist views on blacks. They took a moral position on the evils of slavery but they did not believe that blacks were "equal" to whites and did not want to give them all rights afforded to black men. Many, like Lincoln wanted to send black people to Africa or Haiti in order to solve "the race problem."

One of the most interesting subjects I was focused on for the last half of 2016 was the free black community in America and abolition. This included reviewing lots of information about conferences and newspaper articles and various texts written about the subject. When he escaped from slavery, Frederick Douglass was enveloped primarily by black activists. A majority of free blacks did not agree with immigration to Africa or to other nations. They felt this was a way to deny them, again, of their rights afforded by the constitution of this nation, which they considered their "native land." They expressed the fact that Africans initially sold their ancestors to Europeans and they had no desire to go back to that continent just because whites didn't want to see them here in this country.

Frederick Douglass from "The North Star" 1849:

Quote:
Here we have the old colonization spirit revived, and the impudent proposition entertained by the Senate of the United States of expelling the free colored people from the United States, their native land, to Liberia.


We are of the opinion that the free colored people generally mean to live in America, and not in Africa; and to appropriate a large sum for our removal, would merely be a waste of the public money. We do not mean to go to Liberia. Our minds are made up to live here if we can, or die here if we must; so every attempt to remove us will be, as it ought to be, labor lost. Here we are, and here we shall remain.


For two hundred and twenty-eight years has the colored man toiled over the soil of America, under a burning sun and a driver's lash—plowing, planting, reaping, that white men might roll in ease, their hands unhardened by labor, and their brows unmoistened by the waters of genial toil; and now that the moral sense of mankind is beginning to revolt at this system of foul treachery and cruel wrong, and is demanding its overthrow, the mean and cowardly oppressor is meditating plans to expel the colored man entirely from the country. Shame upon the guilty wretches that dare propose, and all that countenance such a proposition. We live here—have lived here—have a right to live here, and mean to live here.—F.D
Based on what I've read on the subject of abolitionists and especially black abolitionists who even white abolitionists felt were going "too far" (in their desire for equal rights in this nation for free blacks and then newly freed slaves) and an end to the idea of sending any considerable amount of free or newly freed blacks to Liberia or Haiti, something many white abolitionists, including Lincoln, endorsed. I can see how the south was afraid of this sort of fervor taking over their chattel's mindset as it would have been shocking in the time IMO which forced them to take drastic actions starting the conflict, after Lincoln's election.
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Old 02-01-2017, 07:41 AM
 
16,212 posts, read 10,786,749 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by justanokie View Post
Tyrant | Define Tyrant at Dictionary.com


Lincolns main goal wasn't ending slavery, it was preservation of the union at any cost. Its not like the guy was on a righteous crusade to end slavery like is typically depicted in text books.

When Gen Fremont issued his own order freeing slaves, Lincoln reversed it because it was politically better.

The Emancipation Proclamation when passed didn't free a single slave. Lincoln saw it as a tool to weaken the South and nothing more. It was successful at that.

Lincoln had little to do with the 13th Amendment, granted he did campaign for it after reelection but thats about it.


There was no sudden attack to repel. Sure call up troops and get ready to defend, well within his powers. But blockading, which is an act of war, without congressional approval? Whats the rush for that?

As for Ft Sumter, the Confederacy warned Lincoln that any attempt to put more men or weapon in Ft Sumter would be an act of war. He used that to force them into firing the first shots. He got his war he wanted.
ITA with the above. Especially the bold in regards to the Emancipation Proclamation. I have ancestors who were slaves in Kentucky, West Virginia, and DC when the proclamation was issued. They were not freed by it. The proclamation was a political move to give more purpose to the war. It was also used as a tool for blacks to be accepted in and subsequently to sign up to fight and for enslaved blacks to flee and sign up to fight against the confederacy.

Frederick Douglass at Cooper Institute responding to the Emancipation Proclamation 1863:

Quote:
I hold that the Proclamation, good as it is, will be worthless—a miserable mockery—unless the nation shall so far conquer its prejudice as to welcome into the army full-grown black men to help fight the battles of the Republic. I know it is said that the negroes won’t fight. But I distrust the accuser. In one breathe the Copperheads tell you the slaves won’t fight, and in the next they tell you that the only effect of the Proclamation is to make the slaves cut their masters’ throats [laughter] and stir up insurrections all over the South. The same men tell you that the negroes are lazy and good for nothing, and in the next breath they tell you that they will all come North and take the labor away from the laboring white men here. In one breath they tell you that the negro can never learn the military art, and in the next they tell you that there is danger that white men may be outranked by colored men. I may be pardoned if I leave these objections to their own contradictions and absurdities.
Quote:
The colored man only waits for honorable admission into the service of the country. They know that who would be free, themselves must strike the blow, and they long for the opportunity to strike that blow. Thus far, however, the colored men of the Free States, and for the most part, of the Slave States, have had their military ardor chilled by the contempt with which their offer to serve their country has been refused. We asked the Governor of New York if he would accept colored troops, and he said it would be impossible for him to receive them. We asked Gov. Curtin of Pennsylvania, and he would not receive colored soldiers at any rate. So that an ardor was chilled. But I know colored men now in the army passing for white, not much whiter than I, but by shaving their heads very closely they manage to get in. I have one from my own town who has been promoted recently. If I could speak loud enough to be heard by the Government at Washington I should say, have a care, have a care, lest you let slip the last moment when your call for help can be answered. You have wronged us long and wronged us greatly, but it is not yet too late to retrieve the past. We still stand ready to serve you, and will do it with a will, at the first sound of your war-trumpet. I know the colored men of the North; I know the colored men of the South. They are ready to rally under the stars and stripes at the first tap of the drum. Give them a chance; stop calling them n i g g e r s,” and call them soldiers.
Just wanted to note that I heart Frederick Douglass. I have loved him since I read his first narrative when I was 9-10 years old. IMO it is too bad that more people don't know about him or his black abolitionist mentors like David Ruggles and others who were very active in abolition, the creation of the Underground Railroad (David Ruggles is the person who helped Frederick Douglass escape slavery), and the subsequent burgeoning Civil Rights Movement that started immediately following the war and not in the 20th century. These people were very involved with lobbying Lincoln to issue the proclamation and to subsequently quit denying blacks the opportunity to fight in the war. Lincoln was against that because he did not initially want to make the war about slavery. For me - Frederick Douglass was a much greater man than Lincoln in various ways.
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Old 02-01-2017, 11:35 AM
 
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He should have granted more time for transition to slave owners, and avoid war..that obviously had a different goal.
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Old 02-01-2017, 12:51 PM
 
Location: Maine's garden spot
3,467 posts, read 7,216,499 times
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I've only had coffee with him a few times. Seems like a nice enough guy.
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Old 02-01-2017, 12:57 PM
 
Location: Parts Unknown, Northern California
48,564 posts, read 24,032,368 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by karstic View Post
He should have granted more time for transition to slave owners, and avoid war..that obviously had a different goal.
You make it sound like the slave owners were not part of the process, or as if they had agreed to gradual emancipation and President Lincoln instead demanded instant abolition.

There wasn't any transition in the works when Lincoln took office. A year into the war he made an offer of compensated gradual emancipation in the loyal slave states and they flatly refused.

Had Lincoln simply given everything more time, nothing would have happened. There was no process underway for liberating the slaves and the slave owners were giving no indication that they had any interest in starting such a process.

There sure are a lot of strongly opinionated people in this thread whose posts suggest that they know very few of the historical facts involved.
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Old 02-01-2017, 01:01 PM
 
1,519 posts, read 1,764,077 times
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Quote:
Lincolns main goal wasn't ending slavery, it was preservation of the union at any cost. Its not like the guy was on a righteous crusade to end slavery like is typically depicted in text books.
True, the war wasn't about slavery. According to Pat Buchanan when Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address he hijacked the purpose of the war making the purpose a moral question of slavery. When northern troops heard Lincoln's speech many of them took off their uniforms and went awol because they didn't fight for what Lincoln was saying at Gettysburg.
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Old 02-01-2017, 01:57 PM
 
Location: Parts Unknown, Northern California
48,564 posts, read 24,032,368 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nickerman View Post
True, the war wasn't about slavery. According to Pat Buchanan when Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address he hijacked the purpose of the war making the purpose a moral question of slavery. When northern troops heard Lincoln's speech many of them took off their uniforms and went awol because they didn't fight for what Lincoln was saying at Gettysburg.
Pat Buchanan needs new reading glasses. Slavery is not mentioned once in the Gettysburg address. The themes of the address were:
1. Whether or not a democracy can survive a civil war.
2. Honoring those who had fought bravely or given their lives so far in the war
3. Completing the great task at hand so that the folks referenced in # 2 will not have died in vain.

Nothing about slaves, nothing about abolition.

As for northern troops deserting after hearing the speech, I would like to see some documentation on that, I never heard of anything along those lines.

and nickerman....don't take your history from Pat Buchanan, or Bill O' Reilly, they are not historians and do not practice academic discipline in their writings.
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