The Gettysburg Address

[Henry]

Unless youre counting the tarriffs on manufactured goods.
The south didnt want the tarriffs. They could exchange cotton for goods.

The tariffs, rightfully nullified by South Carolina, have to be considered in the long train of abuses.

 

[actaeon277]

The tariffs, rightfully nullified by South Carolina, have to be considered in the long train of abuses.

which is why I stated them.

 

[Henry]

which is why I stated them.

Yes Sir.

I simply wanted to note South Carolina's proper response.

 

[rvb]

I have not usually seen the Gettysburg Address associated w/ the 4th... but it could be because the Battle of Gettysburg ended on July 4 (with the fighting taking place July 1-3)?

Two points in history coinciding on the same date.

-rvb

 

[HoughMade]

A lot of information here.

If someone could post the list of bills introduced in southern states to abolish slavery prior to the war and the resultant votes in the legislatures, I'd love to see it. I think it would help me understand. I'd also like to see who the abolitionist state elected officials were in the south before the war.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

If someone could post the list of bills introduced in southern states to abolish slavery prior to the war and the resultant votes in the legislatures, I'd love to see it. I think it would help me understand. I'd also like to see who the abolitionist state elected officials were in the south before the war.

Yeah, that. And, if the CSA just wanted to be left alone with its slaves, then why could no one leave the CSA?

The Lost Causers lost the historical debate, badly, decades ago. The Civil War was caused by slavery, that is confirmed by antebellum history, the culture of the South, the politics of the South, the structure of the CSA Constitution and the declarations hanging on the walls of Southern museums where the Southerners admit that it was about slavery.

As far as the Gettysburg Address being read on the 4th of July, I have not heard of such a thing.

 

[eldirector]

They read it at Conner Prairie's "Symphony on the Prairie" this year. Even had a guy dressed as Lincoln read it.

 

[HoughMade]

They read it at Conner Prairie's "Symphony on the Prairie" this year. Even had a guy dressed as Lincoln read it.

Darned statist oppressors! How dare they read a speech about people fighting and dying so that America could eventually live up to its aspiration that "all men are created equal."

...while the CSA was fighting for freedom and liberty....for some....you know, the white people with guns. Ah, how noble.

 

[eldirector]

They had a guy playing harmonica (actually, several kinds of harmonicas) for several numbers, too.

They DID have the howitzers, though! Nothing says "oppressive federal government" quite like artillery!

 

[Kirk Freeman]

 

[Henry]

Deo Vindice

 

[poptab]

Darned statist oppressors! How dare they read a speech about people fighting and dying so that America could eventually live up to its aspiration that "all men are created equal."

...while the CSA was fighting for freedom and liberty....for some....you know, the white people with guns. Ah, how noble.

On the part of the North, the war was carried on, not to liberate slaves, but by a government that had always perverted and violated the Constitution, to keep the slaves in bondage; and was still willing to do so, if the slaveholders could be thereby induced to stay in the Union.
The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals.
No principle, that is possible to be named, can be more self-evidently false than this; or more self-evidently fatal to all political freedom. Yet it triumphed in the field, and is now assumed to be established. If it really be established, the number of slaves, instead of having been diminished by the war, has been greatly increased; for a man, thus subjected to a government that he does not want, is a slave. And there is no difference, in principle --- but only in degree --- between political and chattel slavery. The former, no less than the latter, denies a man's ownership of himself and the products of his labor; and [*iv] asserts that other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their uses, and at their pleasure.

 

[poptab]

They read it at Conner Prairie's "Symphony on the Prairie" this year. Even had a guy dressed as Lincoln read it.

They read it every year.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals.

Mr. Spooner, why were men compelled to submit to and support the Confederate States of America and resistance to the Confederate States of America made them traitors and criminals?

 

[jamil]

Men fight wars for reasons other than what they say. How much death was dealt in the name of Christianity through the ages by men who cared nothing about it. How much death is dealt today by Islamic extremists in the name of their god? People do what they want and if what they want is unsavory, they invent more savory reasons to justify it.

There was nothing savory about the civil war. Both sides justified it with lofty ideals which hid unsavory goals.

The war was indeed an issue of slavery. The southern men had no qualms in earlier years thrusting their own goals upon the states. But when it threatens the Southern aristocricy, oh, **** the bed Beauregard. "States Rights! Them damn yanks are tryin' ta take our freedom." What better way to get the poor southerners to fight for aristocracy? Heck, ending slavery would have helped them economically. But no, "States Rights!".

 

[poptab]

Mr. Spooner, why were men compelled to submit to and support the Confederate States of America and resistance to the Confederate States of America made them traitors and criminals?

He never praises them for thier morals. He just shows how the north is a complete hypocrite. And tears apart the notion that our government is resting upon anything except force.

You take issue with the irrelevant. I never would support the southern government as I would never support any government.

 

[HoughMade]

Here is but one example of the latter-day CSA apologists flawed reasoning:

"It was the unjust Tariff of 1828".....

First of all, it was passed through Congress according to the Constitution and signed into law. It was not illegal; it was the result of our republican form of government.

Why was the Tariff of 1828 a problem for the south? It placed a tariff on imported good, making domestically produced goods cheaper as compared to foreign goods, but the cheap foreign prices were gone (how many present day CSA supporters are also protectionist and decry cheap good from China, but I digress). They complained because the south could not buy less expensive imported goods and it made cash less available to the British, in particular, to buy southern cotton....but why is this a problem? The south did not have a diversified economy. The south has no fewer natural resources than the north and COULD HAVE industrialized if it wanted to, but the moneyed interests in the south knew that their profit margins were higher growing cotton and other crops with SLAVE LABOR than it was industrializing in any great measure. Had the south industrialized in some greater measure rather than choosing the stolen labor and stolen lives of men and women to pursue profit over any sense of morality, the Tariff of 1828 would not have harmed it and would have benefited it. It could have been producing goods for trade in addition to agricultural products (dependent on slave labor). Rather than see the historical writing on the wall, the south took EVERY opportunity to preserve slavery and even spread it. The Tariff of 1828 is not divorced from the issue of slavery. It is directly tied to it.

The economy of the south depended on slavery, plain and simple. When these secession supporters try to say it was all economic, to the extent they have a point, the context of any economic argument must begin and end with the south's economic dependence on slavery in exclusion to almost all else. In that context, there is NO economic argument that does not have at its root in slavery.

The CSA largely copied the U.S. Constitution for its own with a few notable exceptions. One of the most notable is that its legislature was FORBIDDEN to make any law affecting the property interests-ownership of- slaves. Does that sound like a government that is about to reverse the course on slavery? Does it sound like a "peaceful" solution was in the air?

The "tyranny" of the north is a myth. Following the Civil War, it was another 70 years before the Interstate Commerce clause started to be used for the overwhelming expansion of federal power. "State's Rights" essentially remained intact after the war following reconstruction, to the extent before the war with the exception of allowing black people to be free, vote, and such until the "New Deal".

That slavery would have died a peaceful death shortly is a myth. The 40 or so years before the Civil War demonstrate that the south was going to use any means possible to keep AND EXPAND slavery wherever it could.

That the south started the war (yes, they started the shooting) for state's rights apart from slavery is a myth. The main "State Right" at issue, and at the base of every "State Rights" issue that caused a rift between the north and south was slavery and the south's slavery-based economy. You can't fight to preserve your economic interests and "way of life" and claim that slavery is not the issue. Slavery WAS the economy and WAS the way of life, even if most people did not own slaves. Most people don't run corporations today and would anyone dispute that almost every economic issue today comes down to how corporations are affected?

Were there people in the federal government with bad motives? Well...as my kids would say...duh. Of course there were. If the Union could have been preserved (for a while) without eliminating slavery, I'm sure there were many who would have preferred that. However, the south forced this fight and one of the things they forced it over was resisting a federal law passed under an enumerated power of Congress. In the end, the war was fought over slavery because slavery was at the root of the differences between north and south...even taxes (let's noy forget that the south was given an "unfair" advantage when it came to Congressional representation...3/5ths of a person? Disgraceful).

Some people seem to think that we can't support the decentralization of government and the return of power to the states from the feds unless we sit back and say: "oh sure, slavery had it's down side, but a few more decades of it couldn't hurt."

C'mon.

 

[Henry]

Where have the so called "secession supporters" claimed it was about economics?

Further, is the strong and successful central state we tolerate today a champion of economics? Of Liberty? If so, how so?

 

[HoughMade]

Where have the so called "secession supporters" claimed it was about economics?

Further, is the strong and successful central state we tolerate today a champion of economics? Of Liberty? If so, how so?

Are you saying that what we see in government today is the result of the Civil War without federal power grabs since then? What we see today in excessive federal power has infinitely more to do with the New Deal than the Civil War.

 

[Henry]

Are you saying that what we see in government today is the result of the Civil War without federal power grabs since then? What we see today in excessive federal power has infinitely more to do with the New Deal than the Civil War.

I am suggesting that the aftermath of the war of northern aggression enabled the "new deal", the "great society" and a host of other such failures that result when individuals cede to the state.