On this day in 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivers his famous Gettysburg address. Did you know that no one knows exactly where he gave the speech? And no one knows precisely what he said? Several different transcripts of the speech exist, each with slightly different phrasing.
His speech wasn’t even supposed to be the main feature that day! Instead, a two-hour oration by a former Secretary of State, Edward Everett, was supposed to be the highlight.
Lincoln’s two-minute speech would go down in history. Everett’s has been mostly forgotten.
Stella's Place 
No, I didn’t know most of that. How interesting.
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Using today’s standards of acceptable public art shouldn’t we tear this picture down and hide it away? It doesn’t have one black, Asian, Native American, Pacific/Cook Island, Amazon Basin, Caribbean Island, Eskimo-Aleut (apologies to any separate group I’ve left out) face therein. It’s all oppressive, inherently racist, genocidist, culture killing honkeyites.
Further proof of white insensitivity to the feelings of reactionary, white cultural-revanchist painters who refuse to look ahead 150 years to see and meet the needs of a progressive society.
Gonna turn this in to my 3rd period Correct Thinking class tomorrow for extra credit.
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And don’ be gettin’ me stahted on dat speech’s context…..
Fo’ score and how many years ago yo’ daddies came heuh and stole the lands of the who? Hold me back Eliz’beth, I feel the big one coming…
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💥💥💥💥
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The Confederacy lost the war. If lands were “stolen”, I imagine they were thought of as rewards for the winners, or the “spoils” of war. That’s the way it usually is for the losers in a war. It doesn’t seem fair, but that’s the way it is.
The subject of slavery should have been settled when the Constitution was written and ratified, but it wasn’t. That the matter would be settled eventually was inevitable, as it was in all civilized Western countries.
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Slavery was still in existence in both the North and the South when the Constitution was ratified and didn’t disappear in the North until well into the 19th Century when the slave’s corporate service was no longer required.
The North still profited from slavery in the South and I still believe that the ‘slavery’ issue was largely a cover for a cultural hatred for the South by the North- something we still have.
Slavery was a necessary function for US economic expansion, just as it was in Latin and South America. We could have ended it early on in both the North and the South but neither side wanted to, they both needed it and we’re saddled with the fallout to this day.
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Most northern states abolished slavery, or began to, before 1800. Whether or not some people in the North and the South profited from slavery doesn’t make it any more acceptable. It was an evil practice, no matter who did it, or who profited. MANY northerners opposed slavery prior to the ratification of our Constitution. I suppose some didn’t want to abolish it, but they all knew it was wrong.
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New York passed a law declaring any children born to slaves after July 4, 1799 were ‘freed’ but were considered to be indentured servants until adults. It wasn’t until 1817 a law abolishing slavery was passed but slaves weren’t free until 1827.
Connecticut passed a law in 1784 gradually emancipating the slaves in the state but only those born into slavery and then not until they were 25. Wasn’t until 1848 Connecticut officially ended slavery.
Maine was admitted to the Union to balance Missouri in the Missouri Compromise so when it was admitted in 1820 it was brought in as a ‘free state’ but up until then even though it was part of Massachusetts the census recorded slaves in the borders from 1800 until 1820.
New Hampshire didn’t have a formal law making slavery illegal until 1857.
There are more but you get the idea – not all of the North was totally anti-slavery.
Slavery is generally seen as immoral now as we have universal laws against it and I find our judging past practices in light of present standards intellectually dishonest. Then was then and now is now – had the North lost we’d quite probably be living a different moral reality.
I’m Slavic, we are arguably the owners of the word ‘slave’, my grandfather from the day of his birth to the day he left Poland was OWNED by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He wasn’t a citizen, he was property in a conquered state and had virtually no rights. He couldn’t own the land he worked on and was subject 24/7/365 to the whims and dictates of the Empire.
Wrong? Now maybe but it was an accepted practice in Europe right up to the European nations divesting their empires post-WW II.
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“had the North lost we’d quite probably be living a different moral reality.”
No, we would not. Every other civilized western country abolished slavery long ago. We would have too, sooner rather than later.
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Now we must demand the muslims give up slavery.
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Especially the rich oil states the US is in bed with.
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Belgium owned the Congo until 1960. Britain had Zimbabwe until 1960, Hong Kong until 1997 and still owns over a dozen foreign ‘territories’ around the world. France held Vietnam until 1955 and Algeria until 1962 and still has other French territories around the world.
Slavery by degrees.
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That’s quibbling. The United States still has territories in Guam, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa. Has nothing to do with slavery.
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Only quibbling when you stretch/contract the definition of slavery. Who gets to decide what the parameters of slavery are?
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See map, below.
You are right about some of the northern states. Most had some kind of gradual change from slave to free.
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I just have a more….sinister….prism I view life through, quite possibly due to my various careers.
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The United States banned both American ships from participating in the slave trade and the importation of slaves by foreign ships via the Slave Trade Act of 1794.
In 1806, in a message to Congress, Thomas Jefferson calls for criminalizing the international slave trade, asking Congress to “withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights … which the morality, the reputation, and the best of our country have long been eager to proscribe.”
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And slavers parked their slaves in Puerto Rico and Cuba, smuggling them in to augment the in-house breeding program. We have our stated morals and then we have our daily morals – things like traffic laws that are violated daily, drug laws that are ignored everywhere, various sexual morality laws that were (and are still) violated so commonly that now drug and sex activities that were felonies just a few years ago are acceptable normative behaviors.
The US and UN have great speeches and chest thumpings over human rights but both have levels of acceptable innocent civilian casualties that each can have in an operation…situational ethics.
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England abolished slavery in 1833. Spain abolished slavery completely by 1890. Portugal abolished the trans-atlantic slave trade in 1836, all slavery abolished in 1869. Bulgaria: 1879. Poland: 1864.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slavery_and_serfdom
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It seems that most of the civilized world was coming to the same conclusion that slavery is wrong around the same time.
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England and US formally ended indentured servitude, slavery with a contract, in 1917.
We still ‘own’ those possessions and territories, they are not states, they do no have universal representation in Congress, they are owned. OK, we don’t apply the ‘slave’ term to them because we define ‘slave’ for convenience but ask the Brazilians who were free of Portugal in 1822 but didn’t end slavery until 1868, after over 40% of all slaves imported from Africa ended up there. Or the Indians where slavery was ended in 1843 under British rule. India was owned by Britain until 1947, some 200 years.
BTW, modern slavery: https://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2016/06/02/india-has-the-most-people-living-in-modern-slavery/
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Stella, this was a turning point in our Nations history, going from a states rights, state power over the limited powers of the federal government, to the far reaching powers of the federal government of today. Just my thoughts….
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Yes, it is, but the address is primarily a testament to those who died in the war and, as such, is worth remembering.
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yep….I remember all my Confederate hero family members who died in the illegal, unconstitutional war that Lincoln used to slaughter 600 thousand North Americans because Congress wanted the South not to be able to count Negros in the census to determine the number of voting delegates they got to send to Washington.
Like an Obama speech today, many of Lincoln’s Words were merely words, and he was made into a hero via public school education, not because of his value system, wisdom, or observance of law or Christianity.
The speech was written on the fly on a train trip to the battlefield. Personally, it does not seem to be an honor so much as a whitewash of actual history.
But then, I am a Texan and a Southerner and never owned any slaves, nor did any of my ancestors who merely fought in the Revolutionary War and were part of the founders of the United States of America.
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Look, Josh. My ancestors fought in both the Revolution and the Civil War. While I am from the Devil North, none of my ancestors had slaves either.
Slavery, no matter what you say, was part of the reason for the Civil War. A big part. If it were not for slavery, there would be no Republican Party or President Lincoln, their nominee. The R party was established to combat the Kansas/Nebraska Act which repealed the Missouri compromise.
Think what you like about Lincoln. His life was taken because of his beliefs and actions. Don’t you think he paid a price for them?
By the way, the speech wasn’t written “on the fly” on the train, although it was revised on the train.
If you want to consider all sides, your beliefs are based on what you were taught all of your life in the South, in school, in church, at home. That is primarily why you are anti-Lincoln.
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I am anti-myth, not anti-Lincoln…but like MLK Jr…their fable is greater than their full persona or contributions. In the end, freedom is great…but I do not think that people of color today are totally in a great place merely having freedom, financial and educational benefits, health provisions, citizenship and voting power, and representation in politics.
I believe their social and economic situations nationwide prove that today.
Setting the African’s Free without a PLAN for their education, socialization and introduction into the cultural social norms of the time of the USA, and teaching skills and communications and ability to hold and manage a FAMILY without an owner was a criminal act…Lincoln did not believe they could or should assimilate or intermarry with the European American citizenry….he tried to dump them everywhere and no one would take them….but the NORTH did not want them escaping slavery and going north to compete for jobs at lower wage rates than the Irish or other worker groups in power at the time in industrializing and trading commercial ventures North of the Mason Dixon line. Better they should be free for the South to take care of the problem…resulting in poor black sharecroppers who had no clue how to get financially free….The union did not fight a war of conscience or morality, but of political subterfuge and personal greed….the slaves were a part of the deal….but far far from the cause of the war.
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I wonder if your ancestors regretted fighting for a cause that primarily benefitted rich landowners?
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actually not at all. They all came from Ireland and knew first hand about tyranny and owners of property..they were hard workers, and migrated to Texas having originally settled in Virginia, where they created a lasting settlement, and had to fight off indians…then they moved through Appalatia and to Mississippi, where they helped develop those lands….having served galantly as Patriots in the American Revolution, and then in indian wars protecting settlers to the new nation as it moved westward. They came to Texas as cowboys, then farmers, and then schoolteachers and town and county councilpersons. They hired their field help, or traded with other landowners. Nobody had money for slaves in that part of the South..They fought to protect their family and to keep the land safe from the Union troops who came to destroy the entire infrastructure of the South, which they did…the USA illegally took private property without constitutional right to do so….and at that time, slaves were private property…only today can people put today’s spin on the morality of an institution, altho horrible and very wrong, which was a world norm at the time. Without the war, slavery would have ceased on its own. But the Northern Industrialists and European bankers were impatient and wanted to have all Southern produced cotton exclusively for the fabric mills of the industrial states of the North, and not sold on the open market to England, which as a free market competitor for cotton woven goods.
I know history well from both sides of the Civil War….very well, deeply and personally, economically, religiously, ethnically, educationally, and politically.
Lincoln was another JFK….and his myth is not the reality. His assassination was not the deed of the South and more than the assassination of Kennedy was the deed of Dallas citizens….but it is not a value shot to claim that that was a Southern event anymore than the looting and burning of Atlanta by Gen Sherman was the Lincoln War plan…except that Ulyses S. Grant, the less than sober General of Lincoln’s army, felt that it was to become the North’s version of WWII Hiroshima and Nagasaki and would END the war with fewer dead Northern troops…as the citizens of the North were darn tired of the war…and the South needed to have what few men and boys were left alive to return home and salvage their families and farms.
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I suppose your ancestors were well acquainted with slavery, as it had been perpetrated by the English against the Irish.
If your ancestors fought for the Confederacy, then they were losers in the War. Like I said, we know what happens to the losers.
As far as “….and at that time, slaves were private property…only today can people put today’s spin on the morality of an institution, altho horrible and very wrong, which was a world norm at the time.”, you know, or should know, that isn’t true. As I said earlier, the Republican Party was created solely to oppose the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which overturned the Missouri Compromise.
The evils of slavery were known at the time our Constitution was written, and many of the founders were in favor of abolishing slavery at that time. England abolished slavery via the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. Most of our northern states abolished slavery in the 1700’s, as did Canada. The United States bans both American ships from participating in the slave trade and the importation of slaves by foreign ships via the Slave Trade Act of 1794.
In 1806, in a message to Congress, Thomas Jefferson calls for criminalizing the international slave trade, asking Congress to “withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights … which the morality, the reputation, and the best of our country have long been eager to proscribe.”
Instead, the USA attempted to keep slavery with legislation like the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, and the Dred Scott decision in 1857.
There is NO way that many people, since the 1700’s, believed that another human being could be considered “private property”. That is evil, and it was then, as it is now. It was not a “world norm”. In fact, most other countries abolished slavery before we did in the United States. That point of view is evil (I’ll say it again) and it was at the time in the minds of all right-minded human beings.
No, I don’t look at it as a states’ rights issue. It’s a human rights issue, and I am happy that the Civil War turned out the way it did.
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I think maybe the Civil War is still being fought today. And slavery is not the real reason for that today.
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Give it up joshua. Argue with facts or don’t argue. The reason for the problems in the inner city today are due to the acts of Democrats/Progressives. Blacks and immigrants had no problem establishing themselves in traditional working and family settings until the Progs tempted them with free money.
Out of wedlock births, and the decline in the nuclear family, has affected all of society, but blacks have been affected the most.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/03/the_decline_of_the_africanamerican_family.html
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exactly the point. blacks have allowed themselves to stay in poverty by following the socialist platforms of the progressive democrats. At one time, the democrats were the conservative element of the USA…what with clinging to guns, bibles, and the constitution while bankers and industrialists abused women and children and immigrants with working conditions, chattel slavery, and poor wages. The point is, the desintigration of the black nuclear family started when blacks left the South to seek paying jobs in the manufacturing urban North when they could not keep their family fed in the South as sharecroppers and no ability to save any money for a better life….many did not bring their wives and children with them. Couple that with the brilliant Great Society program promoted by the democrats to pay black women to have kids as long as there was no man in the house to provide income…so their was an incentive to have no nuclear family. Couple that with drugs, booze, lose of Church going, and no male mentors or strong women pushing for the kids to become educated and skilled for bettering themselves….and today you have the white privilege vs black victimhood tearing apart our national unity. so the fact is, the Civil War for liberty and individual freedom is still being waged, just not with guns unless you count those shooting up the urban ghetto neighborhoods.
I consider those facts, and not an argument to “give up”…sorry if you feel that I took you on in this regard, but I also teach school where the myths of what pretends to be our history is promoted via Common Core curriculum and Progressive Propaganda filled text books.
I am not holding for slavery the institution. And I have a moral value against any human enslavement of any other human. But the history of our nation has been bent severely to promote various agendas, and we are learning just now how poorly our government and academic communities have kept us from the truth of our national progression through the years since we fought Britain to gain independence.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_states_and_free_states
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— Chief Justice Roger B. Taney’s majority opinion in the Dred Scott case
In the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sanford decision, the U.S. Supreme Court denied citizenship to all slaves, ex-slaves and descendants of slaves and denied Congress the right to prohibit slavery in the territories. The most important consequence of the Dred Scott decision rested in Chief Justice Roger B. Taney’s declaration that Negroes had always been perceived throughout American history as “only property.”
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Yes, and isn’t that shameful?
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Good ol’ Abe. Only brought up the slavery issue later in “the woah” to gain England’s support & $$$$. Because he, personally, didn’t give a rat’s about slaves/slavery.
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well, the emancipation proclamation was unconstitutional, but it was not freeing slaves…it was to prevent the Southern negros from contributing labor or services to the Confederacy, not to give them a better life…in fact, when the war was over, the proclamation ceased to be in effect and they negros were technically not emancipated at all. None of the Northern negros were freed during this period, and many were conscripted into service in the Union Army…altho the discrimination was so strong that mostly they were cooks and build bridges with labor rather than fighting in battles. Since the South was a declared soverign nation through legal secession, the US President was not legally able to “free” anyone or affect any “property rights” in the Confederate States, until the US Army actually Conquered a state. The war waged for five years, killed 600,000 people and destroyed one half the infrastructure and economy of the entire nation including the Confederacy.
Better things could have brought about the freedom of slaves….but the Congress would not allow Lincoln to purchase the freedom with money rather than merely incite a war.
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March 3, 1837
At the age of 28, while serving in the Illinois General Assembly, Lincoln made one of his first public declarations against slavery.
The following protest was presented to the House, which was read and ordered to be spread on the journals, to wit:
“Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having passed both branches of the General Assembly at its present session, the undersigned hereby protest against the passage of the same.
They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy; but that the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than to abate its evils.
They believe that the Congress of the United States has no power, under the constitution, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the different States.
They believe that the Congress of the United States has the power, under the constitution, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia; but that that power ought not to be exercised unless at the request of the people of said District.
The difference between these opinions and those contained in the said resolutions, is their reason for entering this protest.”
Dan Stone,
A. Lincoln,
Representatives from the county of Sangamon
Lincoln opposed slavery from the very beginning, but believe in working within the law and the Constitution. That was the difference between Lincoln’s position, and that of the abolitionists.
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Do you believe secession was unconstitutional? I go back and forth, haven’t settled completely.
Interestingly enough, once some northerners favored secession. From Wikipedia:
Voices demanding separation from the south were beginning (again). In The Liberator of May 1844 with his “Address to the Friends of Freedom and Emancipation in the United States,” William Lloyd Garrison called for disunion (secession). Garrison wrote: the Constitution was created “at the expense of the colored population of the country”; southerners were dominating the nation—especially representation in Congress—because of the Three-Fifths Compromise; now it was time “to set the captive free by the potency of truth” and to “secede from the government”.[49] Coincidentally, the New England Anti-Slavery Convention endorsed the principles of disunion by a vote of 250–24.[50]
From 1846, after introduction of the Wilmot Proviso into the public debate, talk in favor of secession shifted to southern voices. Southern leaders’ increasing perceptions of helplessness in confronting a powerful political group attacking their interests (and survival) were reminiscent of Federalist alarms at the beginning of the century.
I agree, slavery had to end, should have been dealt with before. It also should have preferably been managed and planned.
I believe the South would have fared much better if Lincoln had lived. And of course she was plundered by opportunists after the war, just as many southerners would have done had they defeated the North and taken more territory than the seceded states.
I also believe that more powerful people were motivated by economics than right and wrong. Even slavery to many was viewed through economic lenses. Motivations on neither side were pure. But you will never convince southerners that they did not begin the war for economic reasons more than anything else.
I have never heard any southerner state that we shouldn’t have fought, though there are plenty now who think that. But I believe that up through my generation there were many, many people who’d have fought that war all over again if they thought we had a chance of victory.
Once I thought the South would neither forget nor forgive Reconstruction. Now I know I was wrong, but only because the left is successfully erasing our history.
Years ago some of the people I worked with at Home Depot asked me to take them to tour Chickamauga Battlefield, after having lived here long enough to realize that the War Between The States was not just history around here.
I’ve never forgotten one of my friends baffled comments about how real the War was to us around here, and how it really wasn’t over for us. This started me, because of course I had never given it thought before.
At any rate, that is changing down here, as I said. And I think it’s not good, and not for good reasons. Partly it’s because younger generations don’t give a damn and don’t own and claim the past as we did.
Which makes them less invested in the future.
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I think history should be preserved, and every child should learn it. Reconstruction was a terrible thing, and I believe you are correct that the South would have fared better if Lincoln had lived.
I would have to do a lot more investigation before I decide whether or not secession was better or even legal.
What bothers me is that some in the Southern states refuse to admit that slavery was a major factor in the Civil War. Can you imagine the North invading the South without the cause of slavery? What would be the reason, if not that?
It seems to me, as well, that it is essential for some Southerners to denigrate Lincoln. I know that Lincoln spoke out against slavery almost 30 years before the Civil War, so why try to portray Lincoln as just as pro slavery as the southern politicians? It seems like there is a vested interest in proving that the South was right and it was all about States Rights, and the North was evil and “property” grabbers. As I said above, the Civil War would not have happened were it not for slavery. And part of that “property” were human beings. Joshua stated as much in one of his comments.
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Absolutely true. I don’t believe you can ever have a war, even what the Church used to refer to as a “just war” without both sides having a partial blindness to their causes and motivations.
The Civil War would never have been fought without the utter evil of slavery. But how would it have been fought if powerful men on both sides did not see in terms of economic gain and loss? How many men would have had the wherewithal to go to war to end slavery and would have been able to accomplish that goal purely for the good of mankind?
There were a number of passionate abolitionists, true. Even some were in the South. Those brave men and women fought their battles often times in activities like the Underground Railroad.
I don’t see the North as evil and the South as just, although as a teen I believed just the opposite. I agree, some in the South refuse to admit the slavery reality., probably more than the number of people in other parts of the country who refuse to consider that slavery was only part of the reason the war was fought.
Sometimes a great good comes from terrible wars. Motivations for war never have been and never will be purely good.
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The first big myth which is universally believed, is that Lincoln, dubbed the “Great Emancipator” , went to war in order to free slaves. The abhorrence of racial injustice and the desire to abolish slavery played no role in the Union’s determination to strangle the Confederacy in its cradle. What did? One factor was Lincoln’s determination to preserve the Union at any cost – including the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. In 1862, Lincoln wrote to Horace Greeley (the leading Northern newspaperman of the day): “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.”
Similarly, in 1861 Congress resolved that the purpose of the war was not “[to interfere] with the rights or established institutions of those states,” but to preserve the Union “with the rights of the several states unimpaired.” On the day that hostilities commenced at Fort Sumter (12 April 1861), only the seven states of the Deep South had seceded, there were more slaves within the Union than outside it and Lincoln hadn’t the slightest intention to free any of them. Alexis de Tocqueville’s observation in Democracy in America (1835-40) remained true: “The prejudice of race appears to be stronger in the states that have abolished slavery than in those where it still exists.”
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Lincoln first spoke out against slavery in 1837. He was ALWAYS against slavery, but believed that we must follow our Constitution, which did not forbid it. The Republican Party was formed to oppose slavery, and Lincoln was it’s first Presidential candidate. Why do you continue to ignore these facts?
Even if Lincoln initially didn’t intend to free the slaves (which I don’t believe, because he DID do exactly that), does that make the practice of owning another human being any more moral?
Racial prejudice still exists. Even if the states that abolished slavery were more racially prejudiced, does that make it all right? NO, it does not.
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Alexis de Tocqueville’s observation in Democracy in America (1835-40) remained true: “The prejudice of race appears to be stronger in the states that have abolished slavery than in those where it still exists.”
Prejudice is not worse than slavery itself.
This kind of attempt to make the South’s position on slavery more fragrant reminds me of what atheists do when they condemn Christians for sinning.
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.
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Here’s what I like about conversions like this. I start out with my default opinion and beliefs. By the end of the thread, I’ve learned things, had to think, done some googling, and some pondering.
When we use more than talking points or shock value statements, we go somewhere. It might not be changing your whole opinion, but it is a gaining of knowledge that can happen for both sides.
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Thank you Joshua, Stella, Menagerie, WeeWeed, Col., Aus and Czar for once again expanding my horizons.
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What I believe or value is personal. What I learn about the reality of history has to be understood by me in the context of the time, not in the context of today social mores, or even of my personal opinions or values. I am always learning through objectivity, not by dug in indoctrination from childhood or institutional environmental propaganda (propaganda is no more evil than advertising is evil…maybe obnoxious and boring). My parents were not bigots nor racists, but were educated and fostered family debate and research about facts vs. opinions. Much of that process seems lost today in many discussions or groups….and political correctness thinking has intimidated many from attempting free discussion as it often leads to put downs, insults, and mere arguments.
Today we have a nation locked in somewhat on opinions and agendas that make discussion and analysis almost impossible because it is merely arguing a point without much listening and considering why the belief might not be absolutely the only truth of factual reality based upon what was going on in place at the time of controversial events.
So this is what I understand today in an abbreviated history of US political parties…and I did not write it.
source:
<<>>
Political Parties in the United States
The leaders of the American Revolution did not like the idea of parties and political battles between parties. Upon his retirement from public life in 1796, George Washington warned Americans against “faction” (parties). James Madison thought parties were probably necessary, although he did not entirely approve of them. Alexander Hamilton thought that faction was a vice to be guarded against at all times. Thomas Jefferson declared in 1789, “If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.” Nevertheless, the men who held these views founded the first two great American political parties.
Early U.S. Parties
Hamilton and other leaders who wanted a strong central government banded together to put over their policies. In 1787 they began calling themselves the Federalists. This was the first United States political party. In 1796, anti-Federalists gathered around Jefferson. Members of Jefferson’s group called themselves Democratic-Republicans. Northern businessmen, bankers, and merchants supported the Federalists. They believed in a strong national (or federal) government. Federalists held that capital and industry were the basis of a healthy republic and that the federal government should act to protect the country’s infant industries. The Democratic-Republican Party drew its followers from planters, small farmers, and artisans. These people wanted government to leave them alone as much as possible. They wanted to limit the federal government’s power and leave the most power in the hands of state and local governments. In foreign affairs the Federalists generally leaned toward England, while the Democratic-Republicans sympathized with Revolutionary France.
Early leaders such as John Adams, who succeeded George Washington as president, had Federalist sympathies. But the Federalists lost control of the government to Jefferson and his party in 1800. The Federalists lingered on as a minority party, especially in New England, for 20 years.
By 1820, American political life was being influenced by sharp differences of opinion between sections of the country. In time, these quarrels led to the Civil War. The slave-holding planters of the South, the frontier farmers of the West, and the manufacturing and banking industries based in the North each wanted the government to follow a different course of action.
In 1828, Andrew Jackson, a Democratic-Republican from Tennessee, was elected president. His party had great support in the South and West. Jackson changed the party’s name to Democrats. People who had once been Federalists joined with anti-Jackson Democrats to form the National Republican, or Whig, Party. Between 1836 and 1852, Whigs gave Democrats strong opposition.
By 1854 the issue of slavery overshadowed all political debate. A related issue was states’ rights. If a state government was in conflict with the national government, which government had the final authority? Debate over slavery and states’ rights tore the parties apart. Northern Abolitionists — people who wanted to abolish slavery — left the Whig party. The Whigs also lost voters to the “Know-Nothing” Party, a new party that violently opposed Roman Catholics and foreigners. The Whig Party began to go to pieces.
At the same time, the issues of slavery and states’ rights divided Democrats into Northern and Southern branches. Southern Democrats strongly favored slavery and states’ rights. Extremists among them believed that a state had a right to secede (leave the Union) if the national government tried to interfere with slavery.
In 1854 antislavery forces and Free Soil forces (a group founded in Buffalo, New York) formed the Republican Party. The Republicans ran their first presidential candidate, John C. Frémont, in 1856. By 1860 the voters had a choice of four major parties — Northern Democrat, Southern Democrat, Republican, and the Constitutional-Union Party, which drew some ex-Whigs. Strong antislavery feeling helped Republicans capture the presidency for Abraham Lincoln. In 1861 the Southern states seceded and the Civil War began.
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So you agree that slavery was a primary cause of the Civil War, right? You believe that slavery is evil and wrong, correct?
I repeat, Abraham Lincoln made his first anti-slavery speech in 1837, long before the creation of the Republican Party or the Civil War. His actions, however much you detest him, led to the freeing of the slaves, and the concept of equal rights and treatment for slaves under the law.
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excuse me please, but why do you insist on putting on me your interpretation of my belief.
what in the world says that I “detest Lincoln”…my heavens, he was President. I do not believe in the myth of his historically assigned attributes…whatever he said….as a POLITICIAN…is the same as is said today by POLITICIANS….Lincoln was a DEBATOR and LAWYER….that does not mean that everything he said, at any time during his assention as an American politician, is absolutely what he believed or felt….that is all.
The freeing of the slaves was not necessarily about his commitment to the black slaves…he was biggoted against them and put them as a piece of his political and party politics…he fought Congress to retain the Union, and the slavery issue was more like the immigration issue today….wanting to return illegal aliens to their country of origin does not say the the Politicans hate them, nor favor them, nor even care much about them…it is about the national economic and social impact, as well as the political impact of our electoral system that enters into every discussion of EVERY politician, Trump as well as all the others, regarding Hispanics, Muslims, Middle Easterners, and peoples from all over the globe that come here illegally or even as anchor babies….it does NOT imply dislike or hatred. Lincoln was focused on the growth of the nation Westward, and doing battle with both sides of the slavery issue….the Southern States, and some Midwestern states had a population of slaves, and the release of these workers would seriously impact the economics of those regions…no matter the evil or good of the issue which is about moral values, not about the President’s job under the Constitution.
I am about truth and facts, not about taking a high moral personal attitude and twisting history to fit my personal feelings.
I agree that the issue of Slavery by each State of the United States and the future designation of New States as either Free or Slavery states was the disagreement over Slavery that caused the Congress, and the State Governments to disagree totally over the future power of the US Government to impose laws OVER that of the States, that had already had laws in place when the Original Continental Congress attempted to get the States to enter into agreed Articles of Confederations and to enact a US Bill of Rights that did not negate those issues already in place in individual states of the original 13 colonies.
But please do not get a take away that I am anti Lincoln…as I said, I am anti historical myth believing when the true history in the context of the time disagrees with todays popular beliefs and stories.
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You are about your interpretation of the facts and your truth. For example, you acknowledge that Lincoln made a speech opposing slavery in 1837, yet you say he’s a politician, so we can’t be sure that’s how he really felt. “that does not mean that everything he said, at any time during his assention as an American politician, is absolutely what he believed or felt….that is all.”
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Now, this is MY belief and opinion.
Wars are never fought because of morality or social justice. Those are issues brought by groups to enable a nation to engage in a war or aggression..
But wars are fought for only two reasons:
Defense against aggression by another group.
or, Power, Control, and Economics.
All other debates about causation is gilding the reality, throughout history of humanity.
Western Religion is about spirituality, not about human domination of peoples
The Christian Bible is a guide for living and an explanation of why that is important and how to live together in civilized society and interpretations other than spiritual guidance, and how the functions of the Ten Commandments make our peoples able to cohabit the planet.
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Without the problem of slavery, there would not have been a Civil War. Period. Yes, economics, power and control entered into it (on both sides), because human beings are not pure and without avarice and sin, but slavery was at it’s heart.
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The Northern States that were left by the Confederate seccession acts wanted to retain the large tax base of those Southern States as a primary reason to want them back.
The dispute over tariffs imposed at the Federal Level on Southern Agricultural products that could be sold on the international open market was to force the Southern producers of goods to have to sell goods to the Northern states cloth mills and grocers and to use the Northern Ports to offload goods shipped from the South. England wanted the cotton, but the high tariffs made Southern Cotton more expense so they began to seek other sources, including Egypt to buy cotton from, and the Northern industrialist wanted to expand cloth production so they wanted cheaper cotton for their own materials….they used women and children and indentured servants to run those mills….and until child labor laws were passed, these people were miserably exploited….and that is historically provable, not a myth.
These were the major cause of the conflict between North and South….economics and trade restrictions based on Federal regulations and tariffs…..not on social issues.
The Social Issues are convenient to pin the death of 600,000 people upon in order to pretend the high moral ground, but that was mostly how the war issue has been spun…and was spun at the time. The average US citizen in the North absolutely dispised the war, the war went very badly at first for the North, and went on much longer and much greater death and wounded citizens than they were promised….as the North expected a fast capitulation of the South and a quick victory over the confederacy….the rich northern young men were able to purchase a substitute for them having to be conscripted into the military by paying for a poor Irishman or Immigrant to “take their place” at war. The war was not an elegant, high minded, fine example of American Statesmanship nor morality.
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Without the “Social Issues” (human enslavement), the Civil War would never have happened. I’m still waiting for you to admit that slavery caused the Civil War. Because it did.
The rest is just the rest. War is never pretty. That one certainly was not.
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maybe you do not actually want my admission except confirmation that you are correct and I am somehow wrong…ok…I get it, and can live with that.
Here is the history site that might help get ME and what you assign to ME out of the issue…and you can disagree with History.com authors.
.
5 Things You May Not Know About Lincoln, Slavery and Emancipation
Author
Sarah Pruitt
Website Name
History.com
http://www.history.com/news/5-things-you-may-not-know-about-lincoln-slavery-and-emancipation
there are five issues, this is the first……
Lincoln wasn’t an abolitionist.
Lincoln did believe that slavery was morally wrong, but there was one big problem: It was sanctioned by the highest law in the land, the Constitution. The nation’s founding fathers, who also struggled with how to address slavery, did not explicitly write the word “slavery” in the Constitution, but they did include key clauses protecting the institution, including a fugitive slave clause and the three-fifths clause, which allowed Southern states to count slaves for the purposes of representation in the federal government. In a three-hour speech in Peoria, Illinois, in the fall of 1854, Lincoln presented more clearly than ever his moral, legal and economic opposition to slavery—and then admitted he didn’t know exactly what should be done about it within the current political system.
Abolitionists, by contrast, knew exactly what should be done about it: Slavery should be immediately abolished, and freed slaves should be incorporated as equal members of society. They didn’t care about working within the existing political system, or under the Constitution, which they saw as unjustly protecting slavery and slave owners. Leading abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison called the Constitution “a covenant with death and an agreement with Hell,” and went so far as to burn a copy at a Massachusetts rally in 1854. Though Lincoln saw himself as working alongside the abolitionists on behalf of a common anti-slavery cause, he did not count himself among them. Only with emancipation, and with his support of the eventual 13th Amendment, would Lincoln finally win over the most committed abolitionists.
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Stated up front this is not a defense of slavery. Slavery is an evil and abhorrent thing. Period.
I have been a Yankee most of my life. I’ve lived in NC and Texas for part of my life. The South, the people with deep roots do not believe that slavery was the catalyst for the war between the states. They cite economics and state rights and it is a defeat that many southerners still find a bitter pill to swallow. Was slavery deeply intertwined with the southern economy? The answer is yes of course. Could the south have better managed the freeing of slaves on its own without fighting a war against the Union? The answer is of course yes. Was the south not only likely but actually by the laws of human progression and the weight of more and more people standing up against slavery moving in the direction of ending slavery as an institution on its own? The answer to that is yes.
Many people believe that Lincoln acted unconstitutionally. If I am to believe as I was taught in the North that the humanitarian “rescuing” of the slaves was the impetus for Lincoln’s actions I think I are buying into a myth that simply did not exist at the time.
Just as politicians for years and at various times have said that they are doing it for the slaves, the coloreds, the blacks, the people of color, the African-Americans, it really has nothing to do with helping the people whose best interests they claim that they are acting on behalf of and everything to do with gaining and retaining their own power and wealth. The problems the politicians express often exist, slavery is evil, but the impetus behind why they are espousing a certain view is generally political not moral.
Slavery was part of what was behind the economy that was causing the South to outpace the North so essentially one can say slavery was the cause of the civil war, but the South knew slavery as an institution could not withstand the trial of time and they knew that it was coming to an end. Did they need to have hundreds of thousands of their men and boys killed to speed up the process ?
I don’t believe Lincoln, an attorney by trade, the most powerful man in the country was ignorant of the South’s transforming control of the slavery narration. That leaves a war between the states over state rights and the economy as an impetus for war.
Sorry not as well expressed as I would like it to be but I am running late.
Thank you again to the people who are contributing to this conversation and my education.
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I will only add that it was the aim of the southern states (in the 1850’s) to expand slavery into the new territories. If they were aware that slavery was inevitably going to end, why was that? Why was the Kansas Nebraska Act passed, and the Missouri Compromise overturned? Why Dred Scott?
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The Missouri Compromise held things in balance for a time, until a new set of problems emerged following the Mexican War.
With Texas, the southwest, and California now territories of the United States, the issue of whether new states in the west would be free states or slave states became prominent.
Things seemed to be settled for a time when the Compromise of 1850 was passed. Included in that legislation were provisions bringing California into the Union as a free state and also allowing residents of New Mexico to decide whether to be a slave or free state.
Reasons for the Kansas-Nebraska Act
The man who devised the Kansas-Nebraska Act in early 1854, Senator Stephen A. Douglas, actually had a fairly practical goal in mind: the expansion of railroads.
Douglas, a New Englander who had transplanted himself to Illinois, had a grand vision of railroads crossing the continent, with their hub being in Chicago, in his adopted home state. The immediate problem was that the huge wilderness to the west of Iowa and Missouri would have to be organized and brought into the Union before a railroad to California could be built.
And holding everything up was the country’s perennial debate over slavery. Douglas himself was opposed to slavery but did not have any great conviction about the issue, perhaps because he had never actually lived in a state where slavery was legal.
Southerners did not want to bring in a single large state that would be free.
So Douglas came up with the idea of creating two new territories, Nebraska and Kansas. And he also proposed the principle of “popular sovereignty,” under which the residents of the new territories would vote on whether slavery would be legal in the territories.
One problem with this proposal is that it contradicted the Missouri Compromise, which had been holding the country together for more than 30 years.
And a southern senator, Archibald Dixon of Kentucky, demanded that a provision specifically repealing the Missouri Compromise be inserted into the bill Douglas proposed.
Douglas gave in to the demand, though he reportedly said it would “raise a hell of a storm.”
He was right. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise would be seen as inflammatory by a great many people, particularly in the north.
The provision in the Kansas-Nebraska Act calling for “popular sovereignty,” the idea that residents of the new territories would vote on the issue of slavery, soon caused major problems.
Forces on both sides of the issue began arriving in Kansas, and outbreaks of violence resulted. The new territory was soon known as Bleeding Kansas, a name bestowed upon it by Horace Greeley, the influential editor of the New York Tribune.
Open violence in Kansas reached a peak in 1856, when pro-slavery forces burned the “free soil” settlement of Lawrence, Kansas. In response, the fanatical abolitionist John Brown and his followers murdered men who supported slavery.
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That’s all true. My comment was to Lovely, who seems convinced that the southern states were working towards ending slavery.
You just made my point: “Southerners did not want to bring in a single large state that would be free.”
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It was not about the slaves…it was about the state designation and the votes held by Congressional Representation…..just as today, Congress persons then were not particularly bound by their own values, but by the votes that put and kept them in office. They wanted the power and control of the government. The abolitionists were the main advocates of freeing slaves…and many Congresspersons held similar personal convictions…but all the issues of states being free or slave was not about emancipation but about keeping voter balances in the US Government Congress.
What kept changing was the acquisition and opening of new territory, applying for statehood as the Nation grew Westward….and as populations moved from the East into the new frontiers.
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It was about maintaining a certain number of states that allow slavery. Does that sound like the south intended to eliminate slavery to you?
The Missouri Compromise would have insured that the new territories were free rather than slave. The southern states wanted more slave states.
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Just because the southern states did not want to lose any power and representation they clung to does not mean the South had no intent that end slavery.
The writing was on the wall, slavery had to end, but lives, heritage, fortunes, families and land were all in peril. I believe they fought to buy time.
So slavery was an issue. This does not preclude the fact that political and economic powers were lined up against the South and joshua laid that out well.
You are both saying the same thing from different viewpoints. With the exception of your disagreement about Lincoln.
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Why does power equal slavery? Please explain this because I honestly don’t know how Christians can equate the two and insist on having new states allow slavery.
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I did not state that it was right. I have no idea if the politicians on either side were Christian or not. I just think it’s human nature to try to hold on to what you have, and by that I meant their power and way of life, it was not a defense of slavery.
I am sorry that this has gotten you down, I certainly meant no insult. As I said last night, I thought it was a remarkable post because of the conversation and the facts presented. It really made me stop and think, to not only read and reason, but to try to imagine the forces faced by President Lincoln, by all our forefathers.
I have no idea if what President Lincoln did was Constitutional or not. I have no idea about how much longer slavery in America would have endured, and what would have been the better course for our country other than war.
I believe that President Lincoln did what few men could or would have. He faced up to hell, and he did all he could do to save the United States of America, and he did it with every bit of force and will and knowledge he could. I believe love of country was his motivation, as well as his belief about slavery.
I think he opposed slavery, but I think his passion was in preserving the Union. But that is nothing but pure speculation that doesn’t really matter in the end.
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I have no problem with you. This entire line of discussion was in answer to lovely’s comment about the south giving up slavery. My point is that there was no indication that they were doing that at all.
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Honestly, this post and comments really brought me down. I think I may stop doing any blog posts other than cute stuff for the rest of the year. It’s not worth this crap.
ADD: Hardly anyone reads the stuff I post anyway, most days, so it won’t matter.
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With respect, joshua, I am interested now in hearing what lovely has to say about it.
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I am sorry this is getting you down Stella, I think it is a very interesting conversation and I am learning some things. I answered you the best I can in my original post but did a follow up below.
The debate over whether or not the war was fought foremost over slavery has been debated for over a 100 years.
You are sparking thoughts and discussion, that is a good thing.
Until I read Joshua’s quote above I did not know that Lincoln had said this;
“If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”
I would have answered sooner but I was out all day.
I really am sorry.
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Interesting how joshua loves this quote but dismisses as politics those quotes which shows that Lincoln spoke about the evils of slavery 25 years before the Civil War.
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Because people in power know more than all of us know and even back then the people in power in the south knew that Lincoln was a politician. The south I am sure had many more heavy discussions about what to do with the slaves once they were freed than the north ever did. The south had to have a plan, the north did not.
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I think you are completely wrong. It continues to amaze me that the South and the apologists for the slave states continue to downplay the part that slavery played in the south, and that they intended to continue with slavery in the new states.
How can someone who detests slavery not see the irony of condemning Lincoln as a dirty politician who lies (as joshua did), while excusing the continuing use of slavery to enrich themselves?
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I don’t think that I downplayed the part that slavery played in the south.
From my original post.
Was slavery deeply intertwined with the southern economy? The answer is yes of course.
Nor do I think I am an apologist for the slave states. I am making one observation and that is after growing up in the midwest and being given one side of history when I moved to the south I was given another view of history.
I don’t know what more I can say other than there was a movement in the country that was anti-slavery, there were abolitionists, escaped slaves, people were becoming more educated, the moral weight of the evil of slavery was heavy upon the south, even if a portion of the south was trying to hang onto the institution, most people in the south did not own slaves, most white people could not afford slaves so as is normal with societies the people with wealth and power directed the narrative.
Slavgrycould not continue as the citizenry of the United States became more educated and more involved in the movement to end slavery. In my opinion the Southern slave owners knew this truth.
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I agree to all of that, but I don’t see the southern states exhibiting ANY intent to abolish slavery. On the contrary, they intended to extend it to the new territories, if possible.
What may have happened if the Confederacy won the war is anybody’s guess, but I doubt that it would have resulted in immediate emancipation. They probably would have eventually ended slavery – but kicking and screaming all the way.
…even if a portion of the south was trying to hang onto the institution… And that portion were the rich, powerful, and influential men of the day. Those who led the Confederacy.
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Maybe that is where we are having the disconnect and that would be my fault for not posting my view more clearly. I do not think that the men in power in the south;
that portion were the rich, powerful, and influential men of the day. Those who led the Confederacy.
would out of a moral awakening or any goodness in their heart emancipate the slaves, I think it would have become impossible for these men to maintain the institution of slavery because of their fellow white southerners who were not part of the oligarch club, pressure from the north, economic pressure, the education and self awareness of generation after generation of slaves growing up and seeing freedom all around them.
I know this is hypothetical but what if slave owners could no longer sell their crops because people simply refused to do business with them?
I think and this is my opinion that the powerful educated slave owners had to see that their evil of owning other human beings was coming to an end. I also think that some of them not in particular the illegitimate owners of slaves but the educated men who were anti-slavery in the south had to have the conversation among themselves about what plan they would present to the slave owners as to what would happen with people who would no longer be considered property or 1/4 human but fully human. It just seems to me to be a reasonable belief.
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You originally said something about the Confederacy having a plan to abolish slavery. My comments were in answer to that contention. I think it is wishful thinking to believe that their fellow citizens would have forced the end of slavery. If anything, other countries, such as England, would have used economic means to nudge them in that direction (sort of like economic sanctions against North Korea). I don’t think most countries, other than England, really cared about slavery in the south. Possibly if the keeping of slaves became more expensive and the economic benefit disappeared.
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What plan was that, lovely?
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I would not know. Joshua or Menagerie may have some idea. I am not a southerner, I have no southern roots and no one in my family fought for the Confederacy. I have just been reading along here and Joshua has made very valid points in my opinion and Menagerie has asked very valid questions.
It is true that many black families were strong before the progressive told them that they would fail without the government being their nanny so they traded one owner for another. But many of them were also dirt poor, still living in deep poverty which made them ripe picking for the likes of President Johnson and other helpful white latter day Masters.
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You brought it up. That’s why I asked.
As to what the blacks did or might have done isn’t at issue here. Slavery was a sin of the slaveholder.
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Yes I brought it up because it seems self evident to me that the South would be more vested in what would happen to the slaves when they were freed than the North would be because the South held the slaves and would have the vast majority of them remaining in the South when they were freed.
When freedom for the slaves would come and it was bound to come it seems impossible to me that the South would not have had a plan most beneficial to the South for that time.
Slavery is a sin, it is an evil I have not argued otherwise. I disagree that what blacks might or might not have done is not part of the larger issue.
I grew up in Illinois, Chicago, field trips to Springfield, Lincoln’s portrait was in every classroom, we were taught that he was saintly, driven solely by the the purists of motives to free the slaves, I don’t hold that view to be an accurate portrayal of who Lincoln the man, the attorney, the politician truly was after living in the South and after learning more about the man.
I think Lincoln inherited a very divided country much like President Trump.
Out of admiration and respect for you I am going to stop participating in this conversation, the last thing I want to do is make you feel down about your blog.
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That’s fine. I am turning off comments now, anyway. Please continue to think about this. My comment about what blacks might or might not have done means that those actions should have no consideration as to whether or not to free slaves. Yes, that was used as a reason in the south in the 1850’s and 1860’s.
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At the constitutional convention held in Virginia in 1829, a debate took place whether to abolish slavery in the state. The discussion became more intense after the rebellion of Nat Turner in 1831. In response, Thomas Dew, president of the College of William and Mary, wrote a book that defended slavery. His biblical justification provided a certain degree of moral authority for the pro-slavery position during the decades that followed:
With regard to the assertion that slavery is against the spirit of Christianity, we are ready to admit the general assertion, but deny most positively that there is anything in the Old or New Testament which would go to show that slavery, when once introduced, ought at all events to be abrogated, or that the master commits any offense in holding slaves. The children of Israel themselves were slaveholders and were not condemned for it. All the patriarchs themselves were slaveholders; Abraham had more than three hundred, Isaac had a “great store” of them; and even the patient and meek Job himself had “a very great household.” When the children of Israel conquered the land of Canaan, they made one whole tribe “hewers of wood and drawers of water,” and they were at that very time under the special guidance of Jehovah; they were permitted expressly to purchase slaves of the heathen and keep them as an inheritance for their posterity; and even the children of Israel might be enslaved for six years.
Subsequently, in 1837, William Harper, author of the South Carolina Nullification Ordinance of 1832, wrote that slavery was not just a necessary evil which the Bible did not forbid, but a positive good for slave, master, and civilization:
President Dew has shown that the institution of slavery is a principal cause of civilization. Perhaps nothing can be more evident than that it is the sole cause. If anything can be predicated as universally true of uncultivated man, it is that he will not labor beyond what is absolutely necessary to maintain his existence. Labor is pain to those who are unaccustomed to it, and the nature of man is averse to pain. Even with all the training, the helps, and motives of civilization, we find that this aversion cannot be overcome in many individuals of the most cultivated societies. The coercion of slavery alone is adequate to form man to habits of labor. Without it, there can be no accumulation of property, no providence for the future, no tastes for comfort or elegancies, which are the characteristics and essentials of civilization.
Writing in 1854, George Fitzhugh, a Southern sociologist and lawyer, put forward the most aggressive defense of slavery possible, that it was not merely justifiable in the South but economically superior to the free society of the North and would eventually dominate through the country. His biting analysis of the manufacturing system of the North was similar to that of Karl Marx, writing about the conditions in England at about the same time. The two of them drew entirely different conclusions from their analyses.
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h244.html
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His biting analysis of the manufacturing system of the North was similar to that of Karl Marx, writing about the conditions in England at about the same time.
As goes Marx’s communism/socialism so goes slavery advocates ideal civilization.
Where communism is still practiced is hell on earth, where slavery is still sanctioned as an institution is hell on earth.
Both are fundamentally evil. Both have been tried and been grotesque failures.
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dred scott case was decided by the US Supreme Court, whose justices clearly supported slavery ownership and believed that negros were not eligible for free citizenship under any circumstances including moving to a free state. Just as the Supreme Court of the US today can be left or right leaning determined by the personal politics and agenda of its members, the same happened here.
Scott v Sanford
Two years later, the Scotts took their case a step higher to the federal court of the US Circuit Court in Missouri but were again unsuccessful as the court upheld the earlier decision of the Missouri Supreme Court. No doubt daunted by this latest setback, the Scotts and their lawyers nonetheless decided to take their case yet further – to the US Supreme Court.
But the odds were stacked against Dred Scott and his wife from the start – seven of the nine justices of the Supreme Court were either slave owners or at least pro-slavery. Sure enough on 6 March 1857, Chief Justice, Roger B Taney, ruled against the Scotts, stating that people of African ancestry were not eligible as US citizens and therefore had no recourse to the US legal system. Black people, said Taney, “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” Furthermore, a slave did not become free merely by entering a free state. Therefore, Dred Scott and his wife were to remain enslaved. The court also declared that the Missouri Compromise of 1820, that had set a north-south demarcation line between slave and free states, was unconstitutional. Congress did not have the authority to prohibit slavery and its spread should be permitted in all newly-emerging US territories.
The American Declaration of Independence may have included the phrase, “all men are created equal” but, Taney argued, “it is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration.”
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Lincoln quotes:
1865: “Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”
1854: “What I do say is, that no man is good enough to govern another man, without that other’s consent. I say this is the leading principle – the sheet anchor of American republicanism.”
1855: “In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border.”
1864: “I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel.”
1858: “In the first place, I insist that our fathers did not make this nation half slave and half free, or part slave and part free. I insist that they found the institution of slavery existing here. They did not make it so, but they left it so because they knew of no way to get rid of it at that time.”
1859: “I think slavery is wrong, morally, and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union.”
1862: “In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free – honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just – a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.”
1858: “Now, I confess myself as belonging to that class in the country who contemplate slavery as a moral, social and political evil, having due regard for its actual existence amongst us and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, and to all the constitutional obligations which have been thrown about it; but, nevertheless, desire a policy that looks to the prevention of it as a wrong, and looks hopefully to the time when as a wrong it may come to an end.”
1860: “You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us.”
I can keep going, if you like …
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Quotes by Jefferson Davis (and he was an enlightened slaveholder, I hear):
Let the gentleman go to Revelation to learn the decree of God – let him go to the Bible. . . . I said that slavery was sanctioned in the Bible, authorized, regulated, and recognized from Genesis to Revelation. . . . Slavery existed then in the earliest ages, and among the chosen people of God; and in Revelation we are told that it shall exist till the end of time shall come. You find it in the Old and New Testaments – in the prophecies, psalms, and the epistles of Paul; you find it recognized – sanctioned everywhere.
African slavery, as it exists in the United States, is a moral, a social, and a political blessing.
If slavery be a sin, it is not yours. It does not rest on your action for its origin, on your consent for its existence. It is a common law right to property in the service of man; its origin was Divine decree.
My own convictions as to negro slavery are strong. It has its evils and abuses…We recognize the negro as God and God’s Book and God’s Laws, in nature, tell us to recognize him – our inferior, fitted expressly for servitude…You cannot transform the negro into anything one-tenth as useful or as good as what slavery enables them to be.
Slavery was established by decree of Almighty God…it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation…it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts.
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By the way, the Confederacy did float a plan for gradually eliminating slavery after they won the war, but it was only a concession to gain the support of France and England in the war. The British would not agree to their plan.
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