On the nature of the Confederacy, the American Civil War, and Slavery

[Good-Ole-Rebel]

Sure. Hence why I brought up Kansas.



The Governor of Kansas (ter.), Reeder, didn't press charges regarding Browns role in the violence in Kansas. Brown was confined to the military camp with others. Gov Geary offered clemency to both side. After that Brown left the area for the east. This was in 56 and 57

Clemancy to both sides is not a pardon for murder.

Brown was wanted by the Federal government for murder. Yet everyone in the North turned and looked the other way. Brown met during that time with political leaders in the North East who knew of his murders. No one turned him in. They even supported him.

Again, my point is that this reveals the attitude of the North in that time. They could care less that Brown hacked up 5 unarmed men in front of their wives and children. Those were just 'southern slavery sympathizers'. Who cares?

Roaming free, Brown was able to get financial support form the money men in the north at this time. The 'Secret Six'. They were well known in society. They would have been the Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Michael Dell, of the day. They were funding the attack on Harpers Ferry. That was a terrorist attack upon the South.

Good-Ole-Rebel

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Brown was wanted by the Federal government for murder. Yet everyone in the North turned and looked the other way. Brown met during that time with political leaders in the North East who knew of his murders. No one turned him in. They even supported him.

Again, my point is that this reveals the attitude of the North in that time. They could care less that Brown hacked up 5 unarmed men in front of their wives and children. Those were just 'southern slavery sympathizers'. Who cares?

For me, it's less "who cares?" and more "good job." Violence is often justifiable in defense of liberty.

You claim to be a Christian, so I'm sure you're familiar with the Exodus story. If God is justified in killing the firstborn of an entire nation, including innocent children, because it refused to free its slaves, then surely there's no problem with killing a few actual slavers, no?

 

[Prim969]

For me, it's less "who cares?" and more "good job." Violence is often justifiable in defense of liberty.

You claim to be a Christian, so I'm sure you're familiar with the Exodus story. If God is justified in killing the firstborn of an entire nation, including innocent children, because it refused to free its slaves, then surely there's no problem with killing a few actual slavers, no?

Penguin I’m failing to see your point concerning slavery because it was a accepted practice even in the bible was it not. And slavery has been a accepted practice throughout the world as well, Be that with forced slavery or slavery by mutual agreement at least with what the historical accounts tell us all the way up to the present day. But yes I do agree that God does kill so much better. Even better than a Stalinist system or a Mongolian hoard on the move or at the hands of saturation bombing God has done more than any of these could ever have hoped to achieve. As to the Exodus account it was about God freeing his people not about dismantling or abolishing the system of slavery. For that did continue on for thousands of yrs, long after the exodus event. The question being asked ( was slavery the real cause of the American civil war or was it not ) And-not about ones faith. Though I’m sure the Rebel one does hold most truly to his Christian Faith just as you do hold to your beliefs.

 

[Good-Ole-Rebel]

Here are some quotes from (John Brown Abolitionist, David S. Reynolds, Vintage Books, 2005). The book is very good. I believe he is fair for both sides, though his bias for the North comes through at times.

These quotes concern a time after Browns murders at Pottawatomie.

"Few people have experienced so dramatic a change of fortunes as John Brown did between September 1856 and June 1857. The hunted criminal was transformed into a venerated warrior....." (p. 206)

"To realize his violent plans Brown needed arms and soldiers. He was keenly aware of the activities of the National Kansas Committee, which between July 1856 and January 1857 had raised some $85,000 in cash and over $100,000 in supplies for emigrants to Kansas. Brown wanted to tap such resources for his own purposes." (p. 207)

"Although under indictment for the Pottawatomie killings, Brown thought he could slip out of Kansas without being noticed. He was wrong. He was still under the eye of federal authorities and would remain so for some time. He left Kansas in a teamster's wagon with his sons John, Jason, and Owen, crossing over into Nebraska before U.S. troops caught him. On October 7, Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. George Cooke wrote from a place near the Nebraska border, 'I arrived here yesterday, at noon. I just missed the arrest of the notorious Osawatomie outlaw, Brown." (p. 207)

In the authors next sentence and paragraph he jumps ahead three days where Brown is in Tabor Iowa. And Brown is no longer a prisoner as he had just described. But the author fails to explain why. The why is easy to picture. Brown is in the North where they were either in agreement with him, or because his murders involved Southern men, they just didn't care. He was simply turned loose and allowed to roam free.

"By October 10, Brown, shivering with ague and fever, reached Tabor, Iowa. This frontier town, which had been founded in 1848 by Abolitionists from Ohio, was a western station on the underground Railroad." (p. 207)

"After a week in Tabor, Brown felt strong enough to travel to Chicago. From there he went to Ohio, where Congressman Joshua Giddings gave him a letter of introduction to potential funders. Continuing east, Brown stopped at Peterboro, New York, to consult with the antislavery philanthropist Gerrit Smith...." (p. 208)

"Early January 1857 found Brown in Boston, where he looked up Franklin B. Sanborn, the secretary of the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee....Through Sanborn he gained access to arms and money for Kansas and later, for Harper's Ferry." (p. 208)

"Having made important contacts in Boston, Brown was ready to continue fund-raising elsewhere. But first he wanted to meet Charles Sumner, whose pummeling at the hands of Preston Brooks had happened the previous May. When he was taken to Sumner's apartment, he asked the senator, still in pain from the beating....." (p. 210)

My point here is this. Brown is meeting with high up important people in the North. He is a murderer and under indictment by the Federal Govt. He was caught yet turned loose. Even a congressman and senator do nothing. This is what the South was up against. This is the Northern attitude that Jefferson Davis spoke of. This is the inequality in the Union. This was the reason for secession.

Good-Ole-Rebel

 

[Tambourine]

@Good-Ole-Rebel
I re-read your response and I still can't wrap my head around your central argument.

If the Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford protected slavery under the US Constitution, and the Southern slaveholder states saw slavery attacked by Northern abolitionists in spite of these numerous legal protections of slavery, then that still makes the preservation of slavery the primary motivation behind Secession, and, subsequently, the shelling of Fort Sumter.

What other motivations, according to you, did the South have to secede, other than slavery, and what other motivations did the Confederacy have in its attack on Fort Sumter? I can't find anything in either your argument or the sources I have available that points to anything other than the preservation of slavery.

 

[metis]

The issue issue of "slavery" was the tip of the iceberg, whereas the main part of the iceberg had a much wider scope, namely significant cultural issues that differed significantly between North and South, which also led to many fights over which side would more control the country through greater representation.

 

[Good-Ole-Rebel]

@Good-Ole-Rebel
I re-read your response and I still can't wrap my head around your central argument.

If the Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford protected slavery under the US Constitution, and the Southern slaveholder states saw slavery attacked by Northern abolitionists in spite of these numerous legal protections of slavery, then that still makes the preservation of slavery the primary motivation behind Secession, and, subsequently, the shelling of Fort Sumter.

What other motivations, according to you, did the South have to secede, other than slavery, and what other motivations did the Confederacy have in its attack on Fort Sumter? I can't find anything in either your argument or the sources I have available that points to anything other than the preservation of slavery.

First of all, don't say 'if the Supreme Court decision'. The Supreme Court decision is known. Everyone understands that it protected slavery and removed all the past dividing lines from free state to slave state. What you need to understand is that the North's attitude toward that decision was one of rebellion and denial. They would not abide by it.

Remember in the Lincoln/Douglas debates I gave earlier that Douglas stated that Lincoln didn't support the Supreme Court decision? He was against it. As was the North.

Second of all, no. That doesn't make slavery the primary motivation for secession. It makes the refusal of the North to abide by the Constitution and allowing the South their protections under it the primary reason.

I suppose you are not going to answer my questions in the former posts? Correct? You just wanted to reboot the discussion and get away from those. That's fine. Don't worry. They will come up again.

Some 'other motivations' I mentioned in the Jefferson Davis quote. But, you brushed it off as irrelevant. Now you want to know. Jefferson Davis gave the real reason for the secession. Source Material. He lived and suffered the results of it. He never changed his mind on it. Do some research.

You say you can't 'wrap your head around it'. I don't believe you now. You don't want to wrap your head around it. Your stuck on slavery, just like all the rest. And nothing is going to pry you lose from it. It's easy. Makes you look so good. And slavery makes hay, or should I say, cotton.

Good-Ole-Rebel

Good

 

[Tambourine]

First of all, don't say 'if the Supreme Court decision'.

If you know how to construct conditional sentences without the use of an "if" clause, then feel free to point it out. English is only my second language, after all.

 

[Tambourine]

First of all, don't say 'if the Supreme Court decision'. The Supreme Court decision is known. Everyone understands that it protected slavery and removed all the past dividing lines from free state to slave state. What you need to understand is that the North's attitude toward that decision was one of rebellion and denial. They would not abide by it.

Remember in the Lincoln/Douglas debates I gave earlier that Douglas stated that Lincoln didn't support the Supreme Court decision? He was against it. As was the North.

Second of all, no. That doesn't make slavery the primary motivation for secession. It makes the refusal of the North to abide by the Constitution and allowing the South their protections under it the primary reason.

The North did not literally make the South secede. Southerners were not robots or automatons who were guided by Northerners, they were more or less rational agents of their own fate to the same degree as Northerners were.

The governments of the Southern states had agency in its decision to secede. Instead of secession, they could have opted for any other possible course of action. They chose to secede from the Union, with all the possible consequences such a decision would entail. They motivations that drove them to act in the specific way they acted.

I suppose you are not going to answer my questions in the former posts? Correct? You just wanted to reboot the discussion and get away from those. That's fine. Don't worry. They will come up again.

Will they? It seems to me that we're getting lost in the details when we haven't even been able to hash out the central argument of this debate yet.

Some 'other motivations' I mentioned in the Jefferson Davis quote. But, you brushed it off as irrelevant. Now you want to know. Jefferson Davis gave the real reason for the secession. Source Material. He lived and suffered the results of it. He never changed his mind on it. Do some research.

Where have we established that

• Davis's opinions are "the real reason for the secession" and
  
• Jefferson Davis never changed his mind on what the "real reasons" were?

Where does this come from? What evidence do we have that supports these claims?

 

[Tambourine]

Most importantly, however:

You say you can't 'wrap your head around it'. I don't believe you now. You don't want to wrap your head around it.

If you really think I'm lying to you when I state my intent clearly and unambiguously, then frankly, I don't see the point in continueing this discussion.

If we are supposed to have a debate, there needs to be a minimum level of mutual trust between us; at the very least, a mutual assumption of earnestness and honesty.


If you believe that I am only lying to you and not interested in debate, then there is no such trust, and any such debate will end in bad blood or worse - as it seems it already has:

Your stuck on slavery, just like all the rest. And nothing is going to pry you lose from it. It's easy. Makes you look so good. And slavery makes hay, or should I say, cotton.

Are you actually taking personal offense because I characterized the Antebellum South as a slaveholding society?

 

[Good-Ole-Rebel]

If you know how to construct conditional sentences without the use of an "if" clause, then feel free to point it out. English is only my second language, after all.

My point is that it was not an 'if'. It is important as you refuse to answer the questions I had asked the previous posts. You refuse to acknowledge that slavery was protected by the Constitution. You refuse to acknowledge that Lincoln was as much a racist as any white slave owner. You refuse to acknowledge that Lincoln was willing to protect slavery forever with the use of the 13th amendment.

So, I have no reason to believe your 'if' is just a grammatical construct. I have every reason to believe you doubt that the Supreme Court and the Constitution did protect slavery.

But, you can.clarify that easy enough. Just tell me you do recognize slavery was protected by the Constitution, the Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court, and Lincoln's willingness to sign a bill where slavery was protected forever in the 13th amendment.

Good-Ole-Rebel

 

[Good-Ole-Rebel]

Most importantly, however:


If you really think I'm lying to you when I state my intent clearly and unambiguously, then frankly, I don't see the point in continueing this discussion.

If we are supposed to have a debate, there needs to be a minimum level of mutual trust between us; at the very least, a mutual assumption of earnestness and honesty.


If you believe that I am only lying to you and not interested in debate, then there is no such trust, and any such debate will end in bad blood or worse - as it seems it already has:

Are you actually taking personal offense because I characterized the Antebellum South as a slaveholding society?

You're just looking for a way out now. That's fine, go ahead. When you want to discuss it further I will respond.

Good-Ole-Rebel

 

[Tambourine]

My point is that it was not an 'if'. It is important as you refuse to answer the questions I had asked the previous posts. You refuse to acknowledge that slavery was protected by the Constitution. You refuse to acknowledge that Lincoln was as much a racist as any white slave owner. You refuse to acknowledge that Lincoln was willing to protect slavery forever with the use of the 13th amendment.

So, I have no reason to believe your 'if' is just a grammatical construct. I have every reason to believe you doubt that the Supreme Court and the Constitution did protect slavery.

But, you can.clarify that easy enough. Just tell me you do recognize slavery was protected by the Constitution, the Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court, and Lincoln's willingness to sign a bill where slavery was protected forever in the 13th amendment.

Good-Ole-Rebel

Sorry for that. I read up on Dred Scott v. Sanford, so yes, I agree, the US Supreme Court did uphold that the US Constitution effectively protected slavery - moreso, even: It upheld that the US Constitution was a racist document that did not see Black Americans as US citizens, in line with the slaveholders' white supremacist ideology.

So in this, you are correct. Now, can you answer me, what does this mean for the question whether the South fought to preserve slavery?

You refuse to acknowledge that Lincoln was as much a racist as any white slave owner.

How could he be as racist as someone who literally keeps a human being in bondage because of their race?
Sorry, but that's just not true.

More importantly, however, why is important whether Lincoln was a racist? How does this relate to the question whether the South fought to preserve slavery?

You refuse to acknowledge that Lincoln was willing to protect slavery forever with the use of the 13th amendment.

By the time Lincoln became President of the US, the Southern states were already about to secede. Clearly the South did not treat his suggestion as a serious offer. So why should we?

And what was the point in bringing it up? What is the purpose of argueing this within the framework of this debate?
Why is this point important to the argument whether the South fought to preserve slavery?

 

[Tambourine]

You're just looking for a way out now. That's fine, go ahead. When you want to discuss it further I will respond.

Good-Ole-Rebel

I have one question to ask, @Good-Ole-Rebel. What exact point do you see in this debate?

 

[Good-Ole-Rebel]

Sorry for that. I read up on Dred Scott v. Sanford, so yes, I agree, the US Supreme Court did uphold that the US Constitution effectively protected slavery - moreso, even: It upheld that the US Constitution was a racist document that did not see Black Americans as US citizens, in line with the slaveholders' white supremacist ideology.

So in this, you are correct. Now, can you answer me, what does this mean for the question whether the South fought to preserve slavery?



How could he be as racist as someone who literally keeps a human being in bondage because of their race?
Sorry, but that's just not true.

More importantly, however, why is important whether Lincoln was a racist? How does this relate to the question whether the South fought to preserve slavery?


By the time Lincoln became President of the US, the Southern states were already about to secede. Clearly the South did not treat his suggestion as a serious offer. So why should we?

And what was the point in bringing it up? What is the purpose of argueing this within the framework of this debate?
Why is this point important to the argument whether the South fought to preserve slavery?

Well, it means the South didn't have to fight or secede to preserve slavery. It was protected under the Constitution. Correct? Gameover. Right? That should have been the end to it. Correct?

You ask me why it's important to prove Lincoln was racist also? You're a perfect example as to why it's important. You are the one who uses the term 'white racism' to brand the South as evil. See your statements in (101, 105). You want to use the term 'white racism' just like others want to use the term 'morality'. One side is moral, the other side is not. One side is racist, the other side is not. One side is good, the other side is evil. And of course the more ignorant a people are about history, the greater affect these buzz words and phrases have upon them.

So, I showed you from Stephen Douglas, a senator from the Yankee state of Illinois, the 'white racism' of the North. See post #(107). And you say it is not true that Lincoln was a 'white racist'. Listen to Lincoln's response to Douglas's statement. "I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two which, in my judgement, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality...I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary...."
(The Annals of America, vol. 9, Encylopedia Britannnica, p.11)

Remember these are political debates covered by the press between Douglas and Lincoln. They are saying things they know will resonate to the people.

Again, understand, I am not saying Lincoln or Douglas or the Yankees were wrong in their white racism. I am saying you and others are wrong in trying to brand the South as white racist's but not the North or the rest of the country.

Well, if you don't believe Lincoln, that is understandable to me. And yes, the South didn't believe him either. But it is still a fact that Lincoln was prepared to sign the bill into law making slavery perpetual in the Southern states, the 13th amendment. Constitutionally, the South had it all. That is why the point is important.

Now, you must be willing to connect the next dot. That 'dot' is in the North's court. Will they accept the Constitution or reject it?

Good-Ole-Rebel

 

[Good-Ole-Rebel]

I have one question to ask, @Good-Ole-Rebel. What exact point do you see in this debate?

My point is to show you that what was occurring in 1861, and the years leading up to it, is not described by saying the South was racist and fought for slavery and that the North was not racist and fought to free the black man. Both statements are false.

Good-Ole-Rebel

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

My point is to show you that what was occurring in 1861, and the years leading up to it, is not described by saying the South was racist and fought for slavery and that the North was not racist and fought to free the black man. Both statements are false.

Good-Ole-Rebel

"The North" and "The South" were both diverse places. There were abolitionists in both, supporters of slavery in both, and racists in both.

In the South, racist slavers - enemies of liberty - didn't have unanimous support, but they did hold political power. In the North, abolitionists who wanted to improve conditions for slaves and give them a measure of liberty by ending slavery held political power; not all of them supported full equality for black people.

None of this implies that the fight against slavery wasn't praiseworthy or worthwhile. Abolition didn't erase every wrong, but it did advance the cause of liberty.

 

[Tambourine]

Well, it means the South didn't have to fight or secede to preserve slavery. It was protected under the Constitution. Correct? Gameover. Right? That should have been the end to it. Correct?

You ask me why it's important to prove Lincoln was racist also? You're a perfect example as to why it's important. You are the one who uses the term 'white racism' to brand the South as evil. See your statements in (101, 105). You want to use the term 'white racism' just like others want to use the term 'morality'. One side is moral, the other side is not. One side is racist, the other side is not. One side is good, the other side is evil. And of course the more ignorant a people are about history, the greater affect these buzz words and phrases have upon them.

So, I showed you from Stephen Douglas, a senator from the Yankee state of Illinois, the 'white racism' of the North. See post #(107). And you say it is not true that Lincoln was a 'white racist'. Listen to Lincoln's response to Douglas's statement. "I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two which, in my judgement, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality...I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary...."
(The Annals of America, vol. 9, Encylopedia Britannnica, p.11)

Remember these are political debates covered by the press between Douglas and Lincoln. They are saying things they know will resonate to the people.

Again, understand, I am not saying Lincoln or Douglas or the Yankees were wrong in their white racism. I am saying you and others are wrong in trying to brand the South as white racist's but not the North or the rest of the country.

Well, if you don't believe Lincoln, that is understandable to me. And yes, the South didn't believe him either. But it is still a fact that Lincoln was prepared to sign the bill into law making slavery perpetual in the Southern states, the 13th amendment. Constitutionally, the South had it all. That is why the point is important.

Now, you must be willing to connect the next dot. That 'dot' is in the North's court. Will they accept the Constitution or reject it?

Good-Ole-Rebel

I never said that only Southerners were racist. That is an (invalid) inference on your part.
I said that Southern slaveholders were more racist than Northerners, because they practiced slavery on the basis of race. That racially based slavery was a practice in the South is an undisputed fact.

Please respond to what I actually wrote.


Note how I also did not say that Northerners were not racist.
That is also an invalid inference on your part.

And I very definitely did not say this:

And you say it is not true that Lincoln was a 'white racist'.

Again, please respond to what I actually wrote.

Furthermore, I never touched upon the question of morality. I am solely interested here in the motivations behind Southern secession and the Confederate fight against the Union. Whether you think of them as heroes or villains is not something I want to discuss.

In fact, let me state for the record that I will at no point in this debate argue for or against the morality of Southern secession. If that is the direction you want to take this debate, then I flat out will not follow you there.

 

[Tambourine]

My point is to show you that what was occurring in 1861, and the years leading up to it, is not described by saying the South was racist and fought for slavery and that the North was not racist and fought to free the black man. Both statements are false.

Good-Ole-Rebel

Well, I never stated in the first place that "the South was racist and fought for slavery and that the North was not racist and fought to free the black man" so I guess your work here is already done?

 

[Tambourine]

"The North" and "The South" were both diverse places. There were abolitionists in both, supporters of slavery in both, and racists in both.

In the South, racist slavers - enemies of liberty - didn't have unanimous support, but they did hold political power. In the North, abolitionists who wanted to improve conditions for slaves and give them a measure of liberty by ending slavery held political power; not all of them supported full equality for black people.

Those are all very important points to consider.

It is worth highlighting that there were slaveholding states that either stayed with the Union (Maryland, Delaware) or had both pro-Union and pro-Confederacy governments (Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri). It certainly wasn't a clean "Southern slavers vs. Northern abolitionists" division at any point.

And as we already agreed, the Union was to a large part incredibly forthcoming to the racist ideas that supported slavery (in both the South and the North).

As far as I can tell, even in the years leading up to Southern Secession, abolitionism does not appear to me as widely popular among Northern electorates as some Southern governments seemed to think it was. From what I read, Lincoln's declaration to free the slaves seems to have been quite a shock to many within the Union outside radical anti-slavery circles.