Nothing could be more clear about the (misguided) reason the North began its war against the South in 1861 than this joint resolution of Congress. It should be remembered that once it was clear that the revolutionary Republicans could not subdue the South without total war, they resorted to Lord Dunmore's strategy from revolutionary times. Dunmore, then Royal Governor of Virginia, proclaimed "on 7 November, 1775, that “all indented servants, Negroes, or others (appertaining to rebels) (are) free, that all able and willing to bear arms, they joining His Majesties Troops, as soon as may be, for the more speedily reducing the colony to a proper sense of their duty to His Majesty’s Crown and dignity.” Dunmore, like Lincoln, understood that to quickly defeat the South one must only incite a race war and have the black slaves rise up and massacre white American citizens in their homes and thus end the "rebellion."
Bernhard Thuersam, Executive Director Cape Fear Historical Institute Post Office Box 328 Wilmington, NC 28402 www.CFHI.net
Not A War To End Slavery:
"On the 22nd of July, 1861, both Houses of Congress with but a few dissenting votes adopted a joint resolution which declared: "This war is not waged, on our part, in any spirit of oppression, not for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States; but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the constitution, and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality and rights of the several States unimpaired; that, as soon as these objects are accomplished, the war ought to cease." Such were the attitude of the Republican party, the avowals and pledges of President Lincoln and the enactments of Congress, with respect to slavery, at the time of Virginia's secession."
