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Historical Ignorance
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Historical Ignorance


Jul 15, 2015, 11:42 AM

http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2015/07/15/historical-ignorance-n2024814


The victors of war write its history in order to cast themselves in the most favorable light.

These 13 sovereign nations came together in 1787 as principals and created the federal government as their agent. Principals have always held the right to fire agents. In other words, states held a right to withdraw from the pact -- secede.

During the 1787 Constitutional Convention, a proposal was made that would allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison rejected it, saying, "A union of the states containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a state would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."

In fact, the ratification documents of Virginia, New York and Rhode Island explicitly said they held the right to resume powers delegated should the federal government become abusive of those powers.

The Constitution never would have been ratified if states thought they could not regain their sovereignty -- in a word, secede.

On the eve of the War of 1861, even unionist politicians saw secession as a right of states. Rep. Jacob M. Kunkel of Maryland said, "Any attempt to preserve the union between the states of this Confederacy by force would be impractical, and destructive of republican liberty."

Both Northern Democratic and Republican Parties favored allowing the South to secede in peace.

Just about every major Northern newspaper editorialized in favor of the South's right to secede.

The War of 1861 settled the issue of secession through brute force that cost 600,000 American lives.

We Americans celebrate Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, but H.L. Mencken correctly evaluated the speech: "It is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense." Lincoln said the soldiers sacrificed their lives "to the cause of self-determination -- that government of the people, by the people, for the people should not perish from the earth." Mencken says: "It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of people to govern themselves."

The War of 1861 brutally established that states could not secede. We are still living with its effects.

Because states cannot secede, the federal government can run roughshod over the U.S. Constitution's limitations of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. States have little or no response.





"The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of people to govern themselves."

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You're right, how awful.


Jul 15, 2015, 1:21 PM

Clearly the South would have been better off seceding and keeping slavery intact. The fate of America and the world would have been much better as well.

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Not the point, Cata.***


Jul 15, 2015, 1:29 PM



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null


No, I get the point.


Jul 15, 2015, 1:39 PM

Lincoln and the Union broke the law, yada yada, they were just as bad as the South, blah blah, South shoulda been allowed to secede.

We hear this tripe often to somehow deflect attention from why the South seceded and why the South might have been better off. That makes for a good Hank Williams Jr. song, but it doesn't change this:

The primary reason the South seceded was to preserve slavery. That proof is in the own written and spoken words of Southern officials who seceded.

Yes, we know Lincoln and others violated the law. Everyone in this whole party sucked. But how often do the postbellum Romantics ask themselves these questions:

Would things really be better if the South had been allowed to secede? What would our lives be like in the South if slavery had continued for several more decades. What about equality and the Civil Rights movement? What would America's role in WW II have been? The South's? What about the other historical advancements our nation has made since the Civil War?

Yeah, Lincoln violated the law, and it's #### good he did. I cringe to think what kind of lives we would have in the South if that didn't happen.

It's over. We lost, and it's a #### good thing we did. Go 'Murica. Support our nation and not a defeated and morally wrong cause.

Right wing Southerners are patriotic my ###.

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Ha ha. Okay, so we agree that wasn't the point. :)***


Jul 15, 2015, 1:45 PM



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null


Well, I think the point is pretty clear...


Jul 15, 2015, 1:54 PM

In what the author says:

"Because states cannot secede, the federal government can run roughshod over the U.S. Constitution's limitations of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. States have little or no response."

Back then? Sure. Like I said, yeah, Lincoln and the fed broke the law.

But sometimes a law may need to be broken for a greater cause. And maybe I'm wrong in thinking this outcome is better than the alternative, but I have a hard time imagining a great South had it been allowed to secede.

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[Catahoula] used to be almost solely a PnR rascal, but now has adopted shidpoasting with a passion. -bengaline

You are the meme master. - RPMcMurphy®

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"Antebellum" is a much prettier word than "postbellum."***


Jul 15, 2015, 2:48 PM [ in reply to No, I get the point. ]



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'Tis, but means something else


Jul 15, 2015, 2:51 PM

And not the word I wanted.

Antebellum Romantics would, well, be dead.

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I wish they'd swap places with the postbellum romantics.***


Jul 15, 2015, 4:29 PM



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Eh


Jul 15, 2015, 1:36 PM

Mencken says: "It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination {for white business interests in the South}; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of {white} people to govern themselves {by owning other people who were not white}."

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Well, yeah


Jul 15, 2015, 2:26 PM

"Self determination" doesn't refer to any particular good that people are determining to attain for themselves. That's the problem with rights talk, but rights talk was part of Lincoln's rhetoric. Besides, the Confederates fought for self-determination for aristocratic land owners, not for business interests. Thinking in terms of business/labor is too capitalistic for the structure of the ante-bellum south.

But I don't think Lincoln's genius, despite his profession as an attorney, was in lawyerly interpretation of the law. Instead, it was in interpreting the American founding in a way that made it noble and saved it from becoming mired in racism. You can either see things Mencken's way and say that Lincoln's interpretation was untrue even if hopeful, or you could see things Lincoln's way and say that Lincoln's rhetoric is actually closer to what the founding meant.

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A few points


Jul 15, 2015, 3:09 PM

From the posts so far, it reinforces what I have seen for years. When discussing the War Between the States, liberals cannot unwrap themselves from slavery. It has been ingrained in their DNA, and they are incapable of a detached view of the world at that time. The facts that Lincoln himself said it was not the cause, and that the Commanding General of the Union Army owned slaves, are irrelevant.

Secondly, there were many countries in the western hemisphere where slavery was legal in 1861, in fact, almost all. It was abolished in every single country without firing a shot.

It is crystal clear that the War of Northern Aggression was exactly that. Every state had the right to secede from the union, but instead of teaching our history as facts, our schools and media have indoctrinated our children to the point that critical thinking is no longer possible for some.

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Even if it was conceded that the war wasn't fought because


Jul 15, 2015, 3:23 PM

of slavery, could you consider that the driving force to secede in the first place was the South's concern of losing its slaves?

And your point is well-taken about how the South is painted as if it had created slavery.

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null


Why would you conclude that? There was no real political


Jul 15, 2015, 4:05 PM

pressure to end slavery.

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Jesus H. Christ


Jul 15, 2015, 3:59 PM [ in reply to A few points ]

You can't unwrap from slavery regarding the Civil War because there wouldn't have been a Civil War without it! (And can that liberal vs. conservative garbage... today's American ideologies of liberal vs. conservative have nothing to do with the Civil War)

Read these quotes, please:

This quote, for the 105th time I've posted it:

The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it—when the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell."
-Confederate VP Alexander Stephens

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization
-Mississippi's declaration of secession

Read Mississippi's entire declaration and tell me with a straight face that it wasn't over slavery.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp

How about Texas?

We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.
-Texas declaration of secession

And Georgia? It's in their first two lines!

The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property...
-Georgia declaration of secession

Read their whole document here. The entire first beast of a paragraph discusses nothing but right to slavery.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_geosec.asp

Oh, and how about our own beloved state? South Carolina opposed states rights because they rejected laws Northern states had passed against slavery.

SC was mad that some states, particularly NY, had "enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them... and "encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.”

I mean, I don't know how much more it can be spelled out for people. If anyone can't read these quotes from the Confederacy and see that slavery was the driving point behind secession, then they're willfully choosing to ignore it.

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You are leaving out the Northern quotes.***


Jul 15, 2015, 4:06 PM



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What does it matter?


Jul 15, 2015, 4:10 PM

Here you have Southern officials stating point blank that their reason for secession was the preservation of slavery. It very clearly makes your claim wrong.

Can you not refute it?

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Who invaded whom?***


Jul 15, 2015, 4:11 PM



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Re: Who invaded whom?***


Jul 15, 2015, 4:14 PM

You claimed slavery was not the reason the South seceded. I proved you wrong with their own quotes. Now you're deflecting.

And it's kinda hard to invade, um, your own territory.

BTW, I really like these obnoxious ref memes and plan to use them with extreme prejudice.

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You are the meme master. - RPMcMurphy®

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It is clear that you are not understanding what I say, Let


Jul 15, 2015, 5:02 PM

me try again.

The South had the right to secede from the union.

It did.

For SC, the date was December 20, 1860.

That could, and should, have been the end of it.

At that point, it was irrelevant if there Were slaves in the South or not. (Slavery was legal in DC, by the way).



http://americancivilwar.com/authors/Joseph_Ryan/Articles/Lincoln-Instigated-War/The-Buried-Fact-Record.html

"On March 5, 1861, commissioners from the Confederate government arrived in Washington and began communicating with William Seward, the Secretary of State. They were there to negotiate with Lincoln, the idea being to establish a treaty between the Union and the Confederacy. In the course of these communications they pressed for the garrisons be evacuated from forts Pickens and Sumter. Lincoln refused to meet with them, but allowed Seward to string them along through the month of March and into early April. Seward’s several messages promised that eventually he would persuade Lincoln to order the evacuations."

Lincoln’s secretary of the navy, Gideon Welles, in his posthumously published book—The Diary of Gideon Welles[4]—states the political climate of the time correctly: “Neither party (Republican or Democrat) appeared to be apprehensive of or to realize the gathering storm. There was a general belief, indulged in by most persons, that an adjustment would in some way be brought about, without any extensive resort to extreme measures. . . the great body of the people. . . were incredulous as to any extensive, serious disturbance.”

How, in riling the country to war, was Lincoln to turn on its head the perception that he was the aggressor? How to make it seem that South Carolina was the aggressor and that Lincoln’s government was merely defending itself from such aggression. How, in other words, to provoke South Carolina into bombarding the fort without, apparently, any provocation?

"...according to the narratives of Welles and Porter, Lincoln has ordered that two separate expeditions put to sea; one expedition led by Fox is to force its way into Charleston Harbor..."

“Don’t make any mistake,” Porter claims to have replied. “You must obey the Commander-in-chief,” and he quoted Lincoln’s order as: “Under no circumstances will you make known to the Navy Department the object of this expedition.”

As for the Confederate commissioners, they were, of course, duped. On April 9, with the Sumter naval expedition presumably in operation, the Confederate commissioners in Washington. wrote to Seward, demanding to know when Sumter would be evacuated; by this time they had received word of the departure of the various ships and the text of Welles’s orders to Mercer and the other captains. Seward replied through Supreme Court Associate Justice, Campbell, “Faith as to Sumter fully kept; wait and see.”

The commissioners wired General Beauregard at Charleston, on April 10: “The Tribune of today declares the main object of the expedition to be the relief of Sumter, and that a force will be landed which will overcome all opposition.”

When it was reported to Beauregard that the Harriet Lane had crept through the Swash Channel and was close to the bar, with other ships lights sighted at sea, Beauregard gave the order to commence the bombardment.





The war began when Lincoln ordered war ships into Confederate territory. Territory that was legal, not illegal. It did not matter if there were 2 slaves or 20 million slaves. Slavery was irrelevant.

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Do you wish the South had been...


Jul 15, 2015, 5:18 PM

Allowed to secede peacefully?

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Absolutely. Here's why.


Jul 15, 2015, 5:52 PM

1. It was a legal act, and everyone knew it.

2. 600,000 people would not have died.

3. The South would not have been reduced to ruin.

4. Our grand parents, great grandparents, etc, would not have had to live in poverty.

5. There would not have been feelings of enmity for generations.

6. Slavery would have ended peacefully, as it did in every other country on the planet.

7. Today, the Confederacy would be something akin to Canada on the US's southern border.

8. Lies would not be taught to our children.

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Except...


Jul 15, 2015, 6:18 PM

1. Slavery wouldn't have died out as fast.

2. Blacks would probably still live in oppression.

3. World history would be vastly different and possibly worse. The Confederacy would have been a lot more sympathetic to the Nazi cause (Godwin!). If you recall, the deep South wasn't exactly Jewish-friendly back then.

4. Lies would be taught in school because people who don't think the South seceded over slavery are liars.

I'll concede the secession was legal at the time. But sometimes we realize that the spirit of the law is stronger than the letter. For the greater good, it had to be put down.

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Nazis, huh? Godwin's Law applies.***


Jul 15, 2015, 6:21 PM



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Re: Nazis, huh? Godwin's Law applies.***


Jul 15, 2015, 7:37 PM
godwin.jpg(39.9 K)



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[Catahoula] used to be almost solely a PnR rascal, but now has adopted shidpoasting with a passion. -bengaline

You are the meme master. - RPMcMurphy®

Trump is not a phony. - RememberTheDanny


Re: Historical Ignorance


Jul 15, 2015, 5:38 PM

I know some will take this the wrong way, but I'll say it anyway.


Slavery would have ended without that war. The invention of machinery would have ended it.

There was pretty much ONE reason for slavery and that was agriculture.

That doesn't mean I'm in favor of slavery, it doesn't mean I agree with it, etc. I just believe it would have ended.

Furthermore, if agriculture was as dominant in the north as it is the south, the north would have their own slave history. (Just pointing that out to the northerners that need to get off that moral high horse)

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