Why did the North want war? Below the reasoned thought of the time gives the answer:
The predicament in which both the Government and the commerce of the country are placed, through the non-enforcement of our revenue laws, is now thoroughly understood the world over...If the manufacturer at Manchester [England] can send his goods into the Western States through New Orleans at less cost than through New York, he is a fool for not availing himself of his advantage... If the importations of the country are made through Southern ports, its exports will go through the same channel. The produce of the West, instead of coming to our own port by millions of tons, to be transported abroad by the same ships through which we received our importations, will seek other routes and other outlets. With the lost of our foreign trade, what is to become of our public works, conducted at the cost of many hundred millions of dollars, to turn into our harbor the products of the interior? They share in the common ruin. So do our manufacturers...
Once at New Orleans, goods may be distributed over the whole country duty-free. The process is perfectly simple... The commercial bearing of the question has acted upon the North... We now see clearly whither we are tending, and the policy we must adopt. With us it is no longer an abstract question--one of Constitutional construction, or of the reserved or delegated powers of the State or Federal government, but of material existence and moral position both at home and abroad... We were divided and confused till our pockets were touched.
--New York Times March 30, 1861
The Southern Confederacy will not employ our ships or buy our goods. What is our shipping without it? Literally nothing... It is very clear that the South gains by this process, and we lose. No--we MUST NOT "let the South go."
--Union Democrat , Manchester, NH, February 19, 1861
From a story entitled: "What shall be done for a revenue?"
That either revenue from duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the ports must be closed to importations from abroad... If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed; the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up; we shall have no money to carry on the government; the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe... Allow rail road iron to be entered at Savannah with the low duty of ten per cent, which is all that the Southern Confederacy think of laying on imported goods, and not an ounce more would be imported at New York; the railroads would be supplied from the southern ports.
--New York Evening Post March 12, 1861, recorded in Northern Editorials on Secession, Howard C. Perkins, ed., 1965, pp. 598-599.
Thank you Val. This is the type of information SHAPE is trying to locate and post. It is especially needed since place like Gettysburg Battlefield promote the "it was about slavery" idea.
Very shortly, I'm going to sit my large posterior down and write my considered thoughts about Gettysburg - past and present - and make a call for a full boycott by anyone who has any respect at all for Southern heritage and the noble Southern dead. As time goes on, I find myself becoming more and more adamant on this matter.
Well that won't be hard, but let's move the discussion to the general discussion forum as this is not the proper forum for such a discussion. What say ye???
Can you tell me why all of the compromise proposals (Crittenden's, Letcher's, Washington Peace Conference etc.) were concerned exclusively with the issue of slavery and made no demands or mention about taxes or tariffs or trade?
Welcome to our website. Please feel free to disagree, all I ask is that you keep your discussions civil and refrain from insults.
If the South left the Union just how was this supposed to expand slavery? As to the preservation of slavery, you could say that was a reason, but the south had at many times tried to free the slaves and the Northern slave traders wouldn't hear of it. Also slavery would only be one of several reasons. Have you ever read the Secession Resolutions? You are aware that only four states had secession documents before Fort Sumter? This is only 1/3 of the Confederacy. Compare the US Constitution to the CSA Constitution and you will see the South went farther in banning slavery than the US.
"their besieged compatriots" The troops in Fort Sumter were neither the compatriots of the men of the South nor were they besieged, they had been drawing supplies from Charleston. Did the South really start the war?? I believe the US broke a verbal treaty not to move into Fort Sumter. This was a clear violation of an existing treaty and an aggressive move by Major Anderson. Lincoln's supply convoy contained more men and arms to reinforce Sumter, another aggressive act. Are you old enough to remember the Cuban missile crisis? Same thing and enemy force within shooting distance of the citizens of another country. What would you do????
Lordy, you have asked a question that requires a library as a response, not just a single post. I would suggest that you need to read books by folks not wedded to the Yankee version of history which is simplistic to the extreme. The Fort Sumter business alone is very involved and though I do have a fairly shortened version of what happened, it's too long to be posted here. E-mail me at -email- and I'll send it to you.
As for why the war happened, there are so many books, but the two books by Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo on Lincoln (The Real Lincoln and Lincoln Unmasked) will suffice to give you a general foundation of the many different problems that brought the South to secession. DiLorenzo is an economist and therefore unlike many "historians" looks at the matter from that viewpoint. Remember the old adage "follow the money"; it obtains in this matter as well. All wars are founded in economics; the War of Secession is no different.
There are tons of other books that finally provide the facts of the matter including the constitutional legitimacy of secession, the falsity of the claim that the war was fought "to preserve the Union" (a "union" is by its very nature voluntary - "union" at the point of a gun is conquest) or that slavery alone or even primarily was the reason for the war. Yes, slavery was A reason, but only one and not necessarily in the way most folks think.
Can you tell me why all of the compromise proposals (Crittenden's, Letcher's, Washington Peace Conference etc.) were concerned exclusively with the issue of slavery and made no demands or mention about taxes or tariffs or trade?
Good one, since you have cherry picked information that only deals with the issue of slavery. These were compromise proposals that regulate the movement of slaves. It is actually unfair and illegal because it is the same as saying you cannot take your car to Kansas. If you read South Carolina or Texas secession documents you will see several more issues addressed.
Also you might note that slavery had nothing to do with the start of the war nor did it have anything to do with the war until Lincoln need to stop England and France from entering the war on the side of the south. Lincoln did not free one slave; in fact Lincoln admitted the last slave state to the Union, West Virginia. This act was a clear violation of the constitution.
Now if the issue was all about slavery and the Crittenden Compromise allowed the slave states to keep their slaves, why didn't they accept this offer?
First, let me say that I was the one who posted the comment that begins with "Lordy", not my friend gpthelastrebel. I don't know how that mixup occurred, but it did.
Secondly, slavery was very much an issue on two counts: first, since slavery was accepted under the Constitution though not enshrined in that document, it became a matter of "private property". Now the concept of private property is THE most compelling concept in the Republic. Originally, in the Declaration, the three rights mentioned by Jefferson were, "life", "liberty" and "PROPERTY" - not the pursuit of happiness. This was changed when it was believed that it didn't do enough to entice the allegiance of those who did not own property and hence might not feel sufficiently moved to join the revolt. On the other hand, all men are moved by the thought of obtaining happiness. Slaves were property just like your horse or your dog - or your wife! And if they could be forcibly taken from you by government, then what man's property was safe? Hence the very real concern that "freeing the slaves" might eventually mean that the government - as governments did in Europe - might be free to determine who owns what and why.
The second reason that slavery became a cause celeb is that radical abolitionists were coming into the South as "preachers" and "teachers" and were fomenting "servile insurrection" in an attempt to get blacks to rise up and kill their masters as in the Nat Turner slave rebellion. Since Turner and his followers killed over 40 whites, few of whom were actual slave owners and as Congress seemed to have no problems with this murderous strategy, needless to say, Southerners were most put out - and frightened. They demanded that the federal government step in and put a stop to these attempts to bring about violent revolution, but instead the Congress entered one tract calling for "servile insurrection" into the Congressional record. In fact, the most well known of these attempts to bring about bloody revolt was the attack by John Brown on the arsenal at Harper's Ferry. Brown believed that local slaves would join with him and kill their masters, but when no such outpouring of help came, he and his group found themselves outnumbered and they surrendered. But certainly, it was Brown's intention to begin a bloodbath in Virginia.
Yes, slavery was very much an issue at the outset of war - but not for the reasons most folks believe. Indeed, since the federal government wanted money from the South and since that money came from those crops that required slave labor, Lincoln was more than willing to enshrine slavery into the Constitution "in perpetuity" through the Corwin Amendment - as long as the "cash cow" South remained in the Union.
I've attached the testimony of a woman teacher from the North regarding efforts by abolitionists to incite rebellion and murder in the South as well as another interesting piece on the subject. northern_teachers_account.doc servile_insurrection.doc
First, let me say that I was the one who posted the comment that begins with "Lordy", not my friend gpthelastrebel. I don't know how that mixup occurred, but it did.
Secondly, slavery was very much an issue on two counts: first, since slavery was accepted under the Constitution though not enshrined in that document, it became a matter of "private property". Now the concept of private property is THE most compelling concept in the Republic. Originally, in the Declaration, the three rights mentioned by Jefferson were, "life", "liberty" and "PROPERTY" - not the pursuit of happiness. This was changed when it was believed that it didn't do enough to entice the allegiance of those who did not own property and hence might not feel sufficiently moved to join the revolt. On the other hand, all men are moved by the thought of obtaining happiness. Slaves were property just like your horse or your dog - or your wife! And if they could be forcibly taken from you by government, then what man's property was safe? Hence the very real concern that "freeing the slaves" might eventually mean that the government - as governments did in Europe - might be free to determine who owns what and why.
The second reason that slavery became a cause celeb is that radical abolitionists were coming into the South as "preachers" and "teachers" and were fomenting "servile insurrection" in an attempt to get blacks to rise up and kill their masters as in the Nat Turner slave rebellion. Since Turner and his followers killed over 40 whites, few of whom were actual slave owners and as Congress seemed to have no problems with this murderous strategy, needless to say, Southerners were most put out - and frightened. They demanded that the federal government step in and put a stop to these attempts to bring about violent revolution, but instead the Congress entered one tract calling for "servile insurrection" into the Congressional record. In fact, the most well known of these attempts to bring about bloody revolt was the attack by John Brown on the arsenal at Harper's Ferry. Brown believed that local slaves would join with him and kill their masters, but when no such outpouring of help came, he and his group found themselves outnumbered and they surrendered. But certainly, it was Brown's intention to begin a bloodbath in Virginia.
Yes, slavery was very much an issue at the outset of war - but not for the reasons most folks believe. Indeed, since the federal government wanted money from the South and since that money came from those crops that required slave labor, Lincoln was more than willing to enshrine slavery into the Constitution "in perpetuity" through the Corwin Amendment - as long as the "cash cow" South remained in the Union.
I've attached the testimony of a woman teacher from the North regarding efforts by abolitionists to incite rebellion and murder in the South as well as another interesting piece on the subject. northern_teachers_account.doc servile_insurrection.doc
Hello, LadyVal.
Madame, I have read your post in full, and I must say that I am very much in agreement with its factual content. But viewing it from the Yankee-Abolitionist perspective, I feel compelled to inquire as to the following;
We all (North & Southern American) know of the original American Declaration of Secession; The "Declaration of Independence" whereby the Founding Fathers (slave-owner & abolitionist alike) who signed the document agreed to the following wording for the opening statement of purpose:
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it...
And indeed, these rights are more than government given – they are God-given.
With this in mind, was it not the right and the responsibility of the enslaved and their abolitionists allies alike - to rebel and revolt against those who kept them in bondage? Was not their cause even more justified and righteous than that of the eleven Confederate States that seceded over their "peculiar institution" - which preserved their republican rights of ownership by depriving the bondsman and women of their God-given unalienable freedoms of liberty and their pursuit of happiness?
Can you tell me why all of the compromise proposals (Crittenden's, Letcher's, Washington Peace Conference etc.) were concerned exclusively with the issue of slavery and made no demands or mention about taxes or tariffs or trade?
Good one, since you have cherry picked information that only deals with the issue of slavery. These were compromise proposals that regulate the movement of slaves. It is actually unfair and illegal because it is the same as saying you cannot take your car to Kansas. If you read South Carolina or Texas secession documents you will see several more issues addressed.
Also you might note that slavery had nothing to do with the start of the war nor did it have anything to do with the war until Lincoln need to stop England and France from entering the war on the side of the south. Lincoln did not free one slave; in fact Lincoln admitted the last slave state to the Union, West Virginia. This act was a clear violation of the constitution.
Now if the issue was all about slavery and the Crittenden Compromise allowed the slave states to keep their slaves, why didn't they accept this offer?
GP
On your first point; No sir, you have my word that I did not cherry-pick anything. All of the Compromise Proposals offered by the Southern states and representatives (Kentucky Sen. John Crittenden, Virginia Gov. John Letcher, The March 1861 Washington Peace Conference of the seven Southern Confederate states, The Proposal of Jefferson Davis', The Proposal of Robert Toombs, etc) - that were submitted just before and in the months following secession; mentioned slavery as their only issues of contention. All of their demands were concerning the following;
• That congress shall pass no law pertaining to the slavery issue without a majority consent of slave-state representatives in congress.
• That the fugitive slave act of 1850 would be upheld by the Northern States (i.e. that the free states agreed to fulfill their Article 4 section 2 obligations to return "fugitives and property" to the slave states).
• That the institution slavery would not be infringed or impeded south of the Missouri compromise line (at the 36th parallel) - from coast-to-coast (California to Virginia), and furthermore that the Nation's capital itself would reintroduce the institution for as long as Maryland remained a slave-state (it was abolished from Washington DC in 1850 as part of the 1850 compromise).
There is no mention or demands made of any kind that pertain to issues of tariffs or taxation (*except in relation to slaves; in the sec 3 of the proposed 13th amendment of the Washington Peace Conference proposal).
On your second point, yes, I must differ with your appraisal. The demands made by the Southern Confederate States and the conditions put forward by their representatives for averting secession and for subsequent reunification (made prior to the war breaking out) are entirely those concerning the expansion and preservation of slavery. And it follows that President Lincoln did not issue orders to mobilize an army until after the federal soldiers were bombarded at Fort Sumter (even tho it was known to everyone on both sides that after a couple of more days the soldiers held up in Fort Sumter would have been starved out on their own accord for lack of food or water).
And lastly, the Crittenden Compromise was submitted on behalf of the Southern States just prior to South Carolina's secession. It was rejected by the federal government because the newly elected Republican representative (like Lincoln) were unwilling to allow for the western expansion of slavery into new states and territories - which was the principle point of disagreement between North and South and the principle demand of Crittenden's ultimatum (at no point however did Lincoln threat to abolish the institution prior to secession).
May I ask, what is current version of among most Southerners for why they seceded? Is it still debated, or is there a generally held view or understanding that, if asked, most people can agree on?
Good one, since you have cherry picked information that only deals with the issue of slavery. These were compromise proposals that regulate the movement of slaves. It is actually unfair and illegal because it is the same as saying you cannot take your car to Kansas. If you read South Carolina or Texas secession documents you will see several more issues addressed.
And my apologies Mr. GP, I forgot to address this point of yours in my last post.
South Carolina, being the first to take the initiative of seceding, issued two separate secession documents; one was addressed to its fellow slave-holding Southern states (that had not yet partitioned themselves from the Republic) - which was published with the hopes of inspiring them to do the same. The other Declaration was drafted at the South Carolina Secession Convention and submitted to the federal government to outline their grievances and their constitutional rights to secede over them.
The first was drafted by notorious "fire-eater" Robert Barnwell Rhett who presided over the secessionist movement a decade earlier at the Nashville Convention (and who btw rejected the 1850 slavery compromise that followed, favoring secession instead). In addition to slavery, he included the theme of "taxation w/o due representation" to invoke the Founding Fathers who of course drafted the original Declaration of Independence some 84 years previous.
The other South Carolina Declaration, published and addressed to the Northern States and the federal government, is ironic in that it mentions nothing of North/South disagreements over protectionism and freetrade, taxation or tariffs; but is concerned solely with the issue of slavery - and their right to secede over it, as it had threatened to do a decade earlier (and had drafted legislation to affirm its rights to do so on "26th day of April, A.D., 1852" as is restated in its secession manifesto).
With respect to the Texas declaration; http://civilwarcauses.org/reasons.htm#Texas - like the declarations submitted by Mississippi and South Carolina, it concerns itself entirely with the North/South quarrels and grievances over the issue of slavery. The only other issue mentioned (in passing) is the federal governments failure to adequately protect the citizens of that state from the frontier outlaws and the mexican insurgents south of the border. (*how so little have things changed since then, huh?) ?
I think you may have been thinking of the Georgia declaration, which includes two paragraphs (of thirteen total) to the issues of subsidies that were given to specific enterprises (such as shipping) that at the time existed only in the industrialized North, whilst the South it claimed, was self-sufficient enough on its own and was therefore unfairly made to contribute to the federal treasury.
There is also paragraph at the end of the (unpublished) Florida declaration that more or less reiterates these statements made by Georgia (Florida mentions the federal tariffs on imports), though, like the Georgia declaration - the entirety that precedes it is concerned with one issue of principle grievance, and only one.
Actually, at that time - and for a considerable time afterward - those words did not refer to people (white or black) who were "indentured servants" or slaves. Remember, there were white slaves. In fact, the Founders were in the main referring to whites and even blacks who were not under any sort of bond whether it was indenture or penal servitude. For instance, felons were not "equal" in the eyes of the law nor are they so even today for felons cannot vote - although that will probably change with this Democrat administration and Congress.
Also remember, that the Declaration was a poetic statement of intent. It was never intended to encompass all the existing situations in the colonies. In fact, I believe that Jefferson included the black slaves but to get a unanimous vote for independence, he had to remove it.
But slavery is an extremely complex issue and certainly the North - as well as the British and the Africans themselves - deserve every bit as much if not more blame for the institution than the South. I suggest at least one book for you to read (again): Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged and Profited from Slavery by Anne Farrow, Joel Lang and Jenifer Frank, 3 journalists from the Hartford (CT) Courant. I am also enclosing some articles of interest for you to look over.
Slavery has been used as a club against the South, but frankly, that is not only supremely simplistic, it is extremely disingenuous. The North only got rid of slavery because the Northern business interests were better served by the use of hundreds of thousands (millions?) of poor immigrants who filled the factories and mines of Northern commercial interests. They were "throw away" labor. They didn't have to be fed, housed, cared for and clothed as did slaves. If they died, they were easily replaced by the thousands that continued to flock to the ports of the North. Slavery was too expensive for Northern industrialists so they sold their slaves South instead! Note that they did not free them; they got what they could in money for them so let's quit the "b.s." regarding Northern moral superiority, shall we?
I'm glad there are people such as yourself, Lady Val, who are aware enough to inform yourself of the obvious, and candid enough acknowledge the painful truths of the past. I sincerely commend you for this. However, you will not be surprised to know that I can find no sympathy for your grievances or for the plight of your people and their culture.
I know of no one who would contend that the North is sinless or free from fault and error, but the fact remains that the South regarded the preservation and the expansion of their "peculiar institution" as something that was more sacrosanct than the preservation of our Glorious Republic and the principle it was founded upon; freedom. Our Republic was founded on the freedoms of religion and speech - so that each of us could have the freedom to espouse our own ideas and express our convictions.
The abolitionist "agitators" were simply expressing and exercising these ideals on which our republic was founded, they were endeavoring to help this nation live up to the idea that we are all entitled to the opportunities that liberty affords everyone. And as we well know, Lincoln was not the one who tore this nation asunder, nor did he impose any dictates on the Southern way of life, he simply refused to capitulate to the South's demands that their institution be included into our nation's capital and be expanded westward to the Pacific ocean.
If there is one thing that history teaches us over and over again; it is the futility of appeasing tyranny and despotism. The South was appeased over its "peculiar institution" time and again - first with the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and then with the Compromise of 1850, and again with the Kansas-Nebraska act. Each time the institution that encroached on freedom itself was appeased and allowed expand, and to what end? Let's not kid ourselves, if the South had not started the war at Fort Sumter - then we would have certainly gone to war over the fate of the remainder of the continent that had yet to be settled, and then over the regions that already had.
Free societies and oppressive regimes can not coexist, sooner or later they will clash - there is not room enough on the planet to accommodate them both. We were reminded of this recently when we left the taleban and alQaeda to their own devises on the opposite side of planet - and they came and attacked our soil and assaulted our freedoms and values. Neville Chamberlain made the same mistake when he appeased Hitler, and less than one year later; look what happened. We left the Imperial Japanese alone to pillage and enslave Indochina, and on December 7, 1941; look what happened.
No, we could not have coexisted, or to put it more bluntly; the South could not have coexisted with a free-republic. They made that very clear with their demands, and the North understood this, and appeased no further. And as an American who enjoys the freedoms that they fought and died for, I owe them a debt of gratitude and I think they should be commended for their terrible sacrifice.
America is the Greatest Nation on earth - and it would not have been if not for the leadership of Abraham Lincoln and his refusal to appease the demands of tyrants. America is a Nation of Liberty and United-States thanks to our Generals and the soldiers that were willing to resort to the only language that dictators and despots understand; the language of overwhelming force. You do not appease the demands of tyranny, Israel knows this, George W. Bush knew this, and it's something that the other great Republican President; Abraham Lincoln understood as well.
God bless America, the freest country on earth. And God bless our men and women who have fought and died to preserve and protect it.
Your argument - while it seems good - is false and disingenuous. You make claims without proof and then present them as "reasons" for the North to act as it did.
First, the South wanted to protect its people. Your vaunted abolitionists did not want what you seem to believe that they wanted. Indeed, they certainly did not want the Negroes among them. Like modern liberals, their sympathy was to a concept, not to people. Most Northern states had "black codes" which forbid Negroes from immigrating into those states, among them Lincoln's Illinois. In fact, the State of Massachusetts had the office of Negro Whipper; when a Negro did not leave the state after a period of time, he or she was flogged until he did. So the belief that somehow the North "cared" for the Negro is preposterous. Furthermore, even if that had been the case, what excuse can you give for trying to bring about a bloodbath that would kill innocent children and end in the deaths of the very people that you are supposed to be "helping"? Suppose agitators from the South had come among the Northern "wage slaves" and tried to entice them to rise up against their "masters" and the civil authority as happened in the infamous New York draft riots? What would you say about such people, that they "cared" for the downtrodden poor of the North? Hardly! Yet, this is what happened in the South. Again, I have sent - or if I failed to include the information, will send information about the South's own efforts to end slavery. It is also a fact that the efforts of radical abolitionists in the North destroyed the South's own abolition movement and forced many who were against slavery to join with those who defended the institution for the purpose of self preservation.
Secondly, though there could be legitimate disagreement about the constitutionality of secession, the simple fact is this: there is NOTHING in the Constitution which gives the Federal Government or the President the right to wage war on the sovereign states and the People of the United States!Abraham Lincoln was a war criminal. He desired and initiated war against the people of this country without reason and certainly with no constitutional right to do so. He suspended the right of habeas corpus which had existed since the Magna Carta. He arrested thousands of NORTHERN citizens who disagreed with his unjust and unconstitutional war and kept them in prison, some never to return to their families. He destroyed the First Amendment freedoms of speech, expression and the press. He used the typical tyrant's tool of getting people to inform against their neighbors and then forced people to sign an unconstitutional "oath" or be imprisoned without any charge save "disloyalty". He oversaw the deliberate murder of tens of thousands of Confederate prisoners of war in such hell holes as Forts Douglas and Merton, Point Lookout and Elmira to name a few. Unlike Andersonville where prisoners and guards ate the same food and where the efforts of the Commandant Henry Wirtz to get food and medicine from the North for his suffering charges was denied by Ulysses Grant, men starved to death in the above Northern Dachaus able to see fruit trees laden with their bounty and food a plenty which was denied to them because they were "rebels". Lincoln perverted the elections in the North in 1864, in one instance sending "Beast" Butler to New York to assure his "victory" in that state. This perversion of the election process by Lincoln and the Republicans is well documented.
You sir, know nothing at all about the cause you espouse. You speak about the "glorious Union". First, a "union" by its very nature is voluntary! "Union" at the point of a gun is called "conquest". And what was "glorious" about a corrupt government involved with supporting with Southern tax monies Northern commercial interests to the benefit of the politicians - like Lincoln - who bestowed their stolen largesse? What is "glorious" about a nation that wages war in so barbaric a manner that the nations of Europe - no strangers to war - were appalled? Think of Sherman the genocide who wanted to murder every man, woman and child who would not bow down at the altar of the Federal Government or a man like Sheridan who burned the farming implements of the civilians in Virginia at war's end so that they would continue to starve even after "peace" was established? In a better world sir, Lincoln, Sherman, Sheridan, Butler and a lot more "Yankees" would have been hanged for the criminals and monsters that they were. I spare Grant because he was a good man who kept his word - but fought for the wrong side. In fact, as far as slavery goes, Grant is quoted as saying that if he had thought that the war was to free the slaves, he would have offered his sword to the South! So much for the argument that most of the men of the North fought to free the slaves!
The States of the South did not want to "conquer" the nation - they wanted to leave a nation that they considered no longer protective of the interests of their people and becoming increasingly hostile to their culture; the South was right and that fact is proven time and again right to today. In fact, Virginia three times rejected the call for secession and only left the Union when Lincoln demanded troops from the Old Dominion to assail the Carolinas and told the Governor that the Federal armies would go through his state to invade the states that had seceded. When faced with a choice of honor or tyranny, Virginia chose to leave what was no longer a Republic, but a tyrannous Empire. But the "Yankees" still aren't satisfied - and won't be - until every last vestige of Southern heritage and history have been exterminated and replaced by a spurious version of history that is better suited to fiction than fact. I rather believe that your understanding of the matter can be found in their fantasies as posited by Lincoln's false claim to some sort of "eternal Union" that predated the Constitution - which was plain nonsense.
It is the South, sir, that maintained the principles of the Founders while the North became poisoned by foreign ideologies brought from Europe especially in the 1840s. Fascism, socialism and even communism - were rife in "the Union" while Lincoln was a Hamilton-Clay mercantilist who wanted a supreme central power from which the States and the People would be granted such crumbs of freedom as Washington saw fit to bestow (and those crumbs grow ever smaller with each passing year!). If you are looking for the heroes of 1776, you are looking in the wrong place.
I, too, used to be proud of "my" country but I have come to see that it is not "my" country. Washington is in the hands of the special interests and an ideology that is diametric not only to all that I hold dear but that the Founders of the Republic also believed and promulgated. Indeed, after a great deal of study, I realize that the Republic died when the Union died - in 1861 - and what has transpired since that time merely utilized our history and patriotic rhetoric to hide this fact. The Constitution sir, is dead. It died when Abraham Lincoln and those in the North for reasons of "patriotism" or "profit" or "power" determined that they could not have their fascist-socialist Empire while republican tenets held sway. They won their "war" at a cost that all our other wars put together have not exceeded. But even that wasn't enough. A dispassionate and objective study of history will show that most of the wars fought by "The Union" since the War of Secession were wars of empire, often initiated by mendacious deceits like Fort Sumter which were used to bring an ignorant public into line with the desire of the Federal beast to make war. Believe me, at 67, I have found these truths to be very disheartening, but they are still truths for all of that.
Finally, let me say this. I was born in the borough of Queens, in the City of New York and have lived within 35 miles of New York City my whole life save for two years when I lived in Hartford, Connecticut after my marriage; my husband is a second generation Greek from Astoria, Queens. My family has as its ancestors such men as John Adams and John Glover (whose lobstermen ferried Washington across the Delaware on Christmas Eve). I don't believe that I have one Southerner in my family tree, so it's no use talking about "my people and their culture". "My people" are of the North and so, alas, "my culture" is a part of the crime against the People of the South. southerners_righting_slavery.doc
Red Horse, please provide me with the Ships name, payload, date entered any port, OF ANY CSS vessel carrying slaves into the USA. I am waiting for your answer.
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