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Thread: How We Know The So-Called “Civil War” Was Not Over Slavery

  1. #1

    How We Know The So-Called “Civil War” Was Not Over Slavery



    How We Know The So-Called “Civil War” Was Not Over Slavery


    Paul Craig Roberts

    When I read Professor Thomas DiLorenzo’s article the question that lept to mind was, “How come the South is said to have fought for slavery when the North wasn’t fighting against slavery?”

    Two days before Lincoln’s inauguration as the 16th President, Congress, consisting only of the Northern states, passed overwhelmingly on March 2, 1861, the Corwin Amendment that gave constitutional protection to slavery. Lincoln endorsed the amendment in his inaugural address, saying “I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.”

    Quite clearly, the North was not prepared to go to war in order to end slavery when on the very eve of war the US Congress and incoming president were in the process of making it unconstitutional to abolish slavery.

    Here we have absolute total proof that the North wanted the South kept in the Union far more than the North wanted to abolish slavery.

    If the South’s real concern was maintaining slavery, the South would not have turned down the constitutional protection of slavery offered them on a silver platter by Congress and the President. Clearly, for the South also the issue was not slavery.

    The real issue between North and South could not be reconciled on the basis of accommodating slavery. The real issue was economic as DiLorenzo, Charles Beard and other historians have documented. The North offered to preserve slavery irrevocably, but the North did not offer to give up the high tariffs and economic policies that the South saw as inimical to its interests.


    Blaming the war on slavery was the way the northern court historians used morality to cover up Lincoln’s naked aggression and the war crimes of his generals. Demonizing the enemy with moral language works for the victor. And it is still ongoing. We see in the destruction of statues the determination to shove remaining symbols of the Confederacy down the Memory Hole.

    Today the ignorant morons, thoroughly brainwashed by Identity Politics, are demanding removal of memorials to Robert E. Lee, an alleged racist toward whom they express violent hatred. This presents a massive paradox. Robert E. Lee was the first person offered command of the Union armies. How can it be that a “Southern racist” was offered command of the Union Army if the Union was going to war to free black slaves?

    Virginia did not secede until April 17, 1861, two days after Lincoln called up troops for the invasion of the South.

    Surely there must be some hook somewhere that the dishonest court historians can use on which to hang an explanation that the war was about slavery. It is not an easy task. Only a small minority of southerners owned slaves. Slaves were brought to the New World by Europeans as a labor force long prior to the existence of the US and the Southern states in order that the abundant land could be exploited. For the South slavery was an inherited institution that pre-dated the South. Diaries and letters of soldiers fighting for the Confederacy and those fighting for the Union provide no evidence that the soldiers were fighting for or against slavery. Princeton historian, Pulitzer Prize winner, Lincoln Prize winner, president of the American Historical Association, and member of the editorial board of Encyclopedia Britannica, James M. McPherson, in his book based on the correspondence of one thousand soldiers from both sides, What They Fought For, 1861-1865, reports that they fought for two different understandings of the Constitution.

    As for the Emancipation Proclamation, on the Union side, military officers were concerned that the Union troops would desert if the Emancipation Proclamation gave them the impression that they were being killed and maimed for the sake of blacks. That is why Lincoln stressed that the proclamation was a “war measure” to provoke an internal slave rebellion that would draw Southern troops off the front lines.

    If we look carefully we can find a phony hook in the South Carolina Declaration of Causes of Secession (December 20, 1860) as long as we ignore the reasoning of the document. Lincoln’s election caused South Carolina to secede. During his campaign for president Lincoln used rhetoric aimed at the abolitionist vote. (Abolitionists did want slavery abolished for moral reasons, though it is sometimes hard to see their morality through their hate, but they never controlled the government.)

    South Carolina saw in Lincoln’s election rhetoric intent to violate the US Constitution, which was a voluntary agreement, and which recognized each state as a free and independent state. After providing a history that supported South Carolina’s position, the document says that to remove all doubt about the sovereignty of states “an amendment was added, which declared that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.”

    South Carolina saw slavery as the issue being used by the North to violate the sovereignty of states and to further centralize power in Washington. The secession document makes the case that the North, which controlled the US government, had broken the compact on which the Union rested and, therefore, had made the Union null and void. For example, South Carolina pointed to Article 4 of the US Constitution, which reads: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.” Northern states had passed laws that nullified federal laws that upheld this article of the compact. Thus, the northern states had deliberately broken the compact on which the union was formed.

    The obvious implication was that every aspect of states’ rights protected by the 10th Amendment could now be violated. And as time passed they were, so South Carolina’s reading of the situation was correct.

    The secession document reads as a defense of the powers of states and not as a defense of slavery. Here is the document: http://teachingamericanhistory.org/l...-of-secession/.

    Read it and see what you decide.

    A court historian, who is determined to focus attention away from the North’s destruction of the US Constitution and the war crimes that accompanied the Constitution’s destruction, will seize on South Carolina’s use of slavery as the example of the issue the North used to subvert the Constitution. The court historian’s reasoning is that as South Carolina makes a to-do about slavery, slavery must have been the cause of the war.

    As South Carolina was the first to secede, its secession document probably was the model for other states. If so, this is the avenue by which court historians, that is, those who replace real history with fake history, turn the war into a war over slavery.

    Once people become brainwashed, especially if it is by propaganda that serves power, they are more or less lost forever. It is extremely difficult to bring them to truth. Just look at the pain and suffering inflicted on historian David Irving for documenting the truth about the war crimes committed by the allies against the Germans. There is no doubt that he is correct, but the truth is unacceptable.

    The same is the case with the War of Northern Aggression. Lies masquerading as history have been institutionalized for 150 years. An institutionalized lie is highly resistant to truth.

    Education has so deteriorated in the US that many people can no longer tell the difference between an explanation and an excuse or justification. In the US denunciation of an orchestrated hate object is a safer path for a writer than explanation. Truth is the casualty.

    That truth is so rare everywhere in the Western World is why the West is doomed. The United States, for example, has an entire population that is completely ignorant of its own history.

    As George Orwell said, the best way to destroy a people is to destroy their history.



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  3. #2
    I love Paul Craig Roberts but he is wrong as two left shoes on this. To fully understand the history of the civil war it is important not to just look at the motivations of the North but to look at the motivations of the South. The southern states stated in their declarations of secession that their main beef was protecting slavery. They wanted slavery to be allowed to expand to the new territories and the wanted the fugitive slave law enforced. In his first inaugural, Lincoln made it clear that he wasn't going to enforce the fugitive slave law, nor allow slavery to expand further. The proposed constitutional amendment that Paul Craig Roberts was referencing did not address either of those issues. The other issue people cite as a cause for secession was tariffs. But tariffs were at an all time low when the South seceded. Had the southern states gone along with South Carolina and seceded when southern slave owner Andrew Jackson was president, then could have legitimately claimed their main beef was tariffs. Tariffs were high back then. Incidentally Andrew Jackson threatened to hang all secessionists and yet for some odd reason Andrew Jackson is still revered in the south. But after the nullification crisis, congress reduced tariffs to the lowest ever in the nation's history. After the southern senators resigned post secession, tariffs were raised. In other words all the South had to do to prevent tariffs from being raised was to NOT secede! Either southerners were the biggest group of stupid bumpkins in history, or the U.S. Civil War was not chiefly about tariffs.

    It's really silly for libertarians to try to defend the South. You and everyone else should watch the movie "The Free State of Jones." It tells the true story of poor southern whites and escaped black slaves who seceded from Mississippi during the Civil War and created their truly libertarian state. People talk about wanting to create a libertarian state in New Hampshire? Well a libertarian state existed in Mississippi. There was no slavery and there were no taxes! And why were these poor whites willing to throw in their lot with escaped slaves? Because the Confederacy in effect was enslaving white people along with blacks! The Confederacy was the first side in the civil war to institute a draft. But after the emancipation proclamation, the confederacy exempted slave owners from the draft! For every 9 slaves you had, you got one exemption! Also Confederate "tax collectors" would conduct raids on the crops of poor white farmers to have food to feed an army fighting in a war that in no way benefited poor whites. Lincoln did a lot of things wrong too. But what rich whites were doing to poor whites during the Civil War was worthy of a counter civil war. Other areas of the South seceded from their states as well. That's how we have West Virginia. An area in North Alabama also seceded. Troops from this area were some of General Sherman's best fighters as he went "Marching through Georgia." Learn your history, all of it.
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  4. #3
    One thing we know . The US was such a backward and ignorant nation it is surprising there is still not slavery . And yes , poor stupid , white people were just pawns to the southern ruling class . As far as the fugitive slave " laws " , those should never have received support from anyone outside slave states . Nothing has changed here , any slavers caught on the property will be killed and buried .
    Last edited by oyarde; 08-24-2017 at 07:55 AM.

  5. #4
    The North was certainly not concerned with abolishing slavery in 1861. But I think some of the facts have been misrepresented.

    Lincoln was against slavery, he just wasn't as anti-slavery as others. Views on slavery in both the North and the South existed on a spectrum. One one end, you had people who wanted an immediate end to slavery and who would accept no compromise, such as John Brown. On the other hand, you had radical fire-eaters who wanted to reopen the Atlantic Slave Trade and expand slavery throughout all territories of the United States like Robert Rhett. The majority of Americans, including Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Steven Douglas, Robert E. Lee, and Ulysses S. Grant all fell somewhere in between.

    The Mexican-American War is what caused the bitter arguments over slavery in the 1850s. Abolitionists were worried about the possibility of slavery expanding through all of the territories conquered from Mexico. And slaveholders were concerned about their institution being shut out of these territories. And this often led to bloodshed, like in Kansas. Slavery became the main issue of that decade, replacing expansionism, tariffs, and central banking that decided elections in the previous two decades. The Democrats and Whigs became deeply divided over slavery and a group of anti-slavery politicians from both parties formed the Republican Party. The Republican Party, while not calling for immediate abolition, was hostile to slavery and would not permit its expansion into new territories. Slaveholders were not content with having their institution limited to the states where it already existed, and were alarmed by the election of Lincoln in 1860.

    Lincoln, while hating slavery, was more concerned with preserving the Union, and offered the Corwin Amendment as a compromise. While on the surface it looks like it would have granted slaveholders everything they wanted, that's not really the case. If enacted, the number of free states would continue to increase, while the number of slave states couldn't increase. And slave states like Missouri, Kentucky, and Delaware may very well have peacefully ended slavery in the 1870s. This means that the power of the slave states in Congress would shrink as time went on. And if free states have enough power in Congress, they could just pass an amendment that declared that the Corwin Amendment was not permanent.
    Stop believing stupid things

  6. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Tywysog Cymru View Post

    Lincoln was against slavery, he just wasn't as anti-slavery as others.
    Hm, that explains why he defended a slave owner against a slave as a lawyer in Matson v. Ashmore which set the stage for Dred Scott....

    /s
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  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by William Tell View Post
    Hm, that explains why he defended a slave owner against a slave as a lawyer in Matson v. Ashmore which set the stage for Dred Scott....

    /s
    I didn't know that, I'll have to read into that.
    Stop believing stupid things

  8. #7
    what causes southern secession? well i cover this on these threads, the main issue was state sovereignty. Tariffs, states rights, slavery and a host of other issues also contributed.


    Ill Take my Stand Causes of Southern Secession- the Upper South
    http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...he-Upper-South

    Causes of Southern Secession- the Cotton States

    http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...-Cotton-States


    I invite all to come post and debate it there.
    Last edited by 1stvermont; 08-24-2017 at 04:48 PM.

  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by jmdrake View Post
    Learn your history, all of it.
    Thanks for your explanation and post. My knowledge of history isn’t so good, so it helps to converse with others.

    I’ve seen this argument regarding why the civil war was fought being bandied about by both sides, so when I saw Roberts’ article, I thought to post it to see what arguments might arise here on RPForums.


    Quote Originally Posted by jmdrake View Post
    The southern states stated in their declarations of secession that their main beef was protecting slavery. They wanted slavery to be allowed to expand to the new territories and they wanted the fugitive slave law enforced. In his first inaugural, Lincoln made it clear that he wasn't going to enforce the fugitive slave law, nor allow slavery to expand further. The proposed constitutional amendment that Paul Craig Roberts was referencing did not address either of those issues.
    Went ahead and looked this up and from what I am seeing it appears that Lincoln, in his inaugural, actually said he would enforce the fugitive slave law and he would not stop slavery from expanding further:

    • Slavery in the Territories: Lincoln asserted that nothing in the Constitution expressly said what either could or could not be done regarding slavery in the territories. He indicated his willingness to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, so long as free blacks could be protected from being kidnapped and illegally sold into slavery through its misuse.

    So Lincoln, in his inaugural speech, seems to be giving the south everything they wanted regarding slavery. Yet they still wanted their independence from the union. So that would seem to confirm what Roberts’ is saying – that they were fighting for reasons other than slavery. Add to that the book of letters from both union and confederate soldiers which Roberts' discusses in which a reading of their letters gives no indication that they were fighting about slavery.


    Quote Originally Posted by jmdrake View Post
    The other issue people cite as a cause for secession was tariffs. But tariffs were at an all time low when the South seceded. Had the southern states gone along with South Carolina and seceded when southern slave owner Andrew Jackson was president, then could have legitimately claimed their main beef was tariffs. Tariffs were high back then. […] But after the nullification crisis, congress reduced tariffs to the lowest ever in the nation's history. After the southern senators resigned post secession, tariffs were raised. In other words all the South had to do to prevent tariffs from being raised was to NOT secede! Either southerners were the biggest group of stupid bumpkins in history, or the U.S. Civil War was not chiefly about tariffs.
    Jim, here is a counter-argument:

    “The country experienced a period of lower tariffs and vibrant economic growth from 1846 to 1857. Then a bank failure caused the Panic of 1857. Congress used this situation to begin discussing a new tariff act, later called the Morrill Tariff of 1861. However, those debates were met with such Southern hostility that the South seceded before the act was passed.” Also, according to this article, the south was paying for 90% of the federal government via tariffs: “At the time, 90 percent of the federal government’s annual revenue came from these taxes on imports [from the south].”


    Dates southern States seceded:

    • Seven states seceded by February 1861:
    • South Carolina (December 20, 1860)
    • Mississippi (January 9, 1861)
    • Florida (January 10, 1861)
    • Alabama (January 11, 1861)
    • Georgia (January 19, 1861)
    • Louisiana (January 26, 1861)
    • Texas (February 1, 1861)
      After President Lincoln called for "troops to suppress the rebellion in the Southern states," four more states seceded:
    • Virginia (April 17, 1861)
    • Arkansas (May 6, 1861)
    • North Carolina (May 20, 1861)
    • Tennessee (June 8, 1861)


    Quote Originally Posted by jmdrake View Post
    It's really silly for libertarians to try to defend the South. You and everyone else should watch the movie "The Free State of Jones." It tells the true story of poor southern whites and escaped black slaves who seceded from Mississippi during the Civil War and created their truly libertarian state.
    Thanks, just added this to my Netflix Queue! 😊 btw, am not trying to defend the south; am just trying to figure out what the truth is.



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  11. #9
    http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017...merica-empire/
    The Lincoln Myth: Ideological Cornerstone of the America Empire


    Thomas DiLorenzo


    “Lincoln is theology, not historiology. He is a faith, he is a church, he is a religion, and he has his own priests and acolytes, most of whom . . . are passionately opposed to anybody telling the truth about him . . . with rare exceptions, you can’t believe what any major Lincoln scholar tells you about Abraham Lincoln and race.”
    –Lerone Bennett, Jr., Forced into Glory, p. 114


    The author of the above quotation, Lerone Bennett, Jr., was the executive editor of Ebony magazine for several decades, beginning in 1958. He is a distinguished African-American author of numerous books, including a biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. He spent twenty years researching and writing his book, Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln’s White Dream, from which he drew the above conclusion about the so-called Lincoln scholars and how they have lied about Lincoln for generations. For obvious reasons, Mr. Bennett is incensed over how so many lies have been told about Lincoln and race.


    Few Americans have ever been taught the truth about Lincoln and race, but it is all right there in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (CW), and in his actions and behavior throughout his life. For example, he said the following:


    “Free them [i.e. the slaves] and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this . . . . We cannot then make them equals” (CW, vol. II, p. 256.


    “What I would most desire would be the separation of the white and black races” (CW, vol. II, p. 521).


    “I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races . . . . I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary” (CW, vol. III, p, 16). (Has there ever been a clearer definition of “white supremacist”?).


    “I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races . . . . I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people” (CW, vol. III, pp. 145-146).


    “I will to the very last stand by the law of this state [Illinois], which forbids the marrying of white people with negroes” (CW, vol. III, p. 146).


    “Senator Douglas remarked . . . that . . . this government was made for the white people and not for the negroes. Why, in point of mere fact, I think so too” (CW, vol. II, p. 281)


    Lincoln was also a lifelong advocate of “colonization,” or the deportation of black people from America. He was a “manager” of the Illinois Colonization Society, which procured tax funding to deport the small number of free blacks residing in the state. He also supported the Illinois constitution, which in 1848 was amended to prohibit the immigration of black people into the state. He made numerous speeches about “colonization.” “I have said that the separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation . . . . such separation must be effected by colonization” (CW, vol. II, p. 409). And, “Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and . . . favorable to . . . our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime” (CW, vol. II, p. 409). Note how Lincoln referred to black people as “the African,” as though they were alien creatures. “The place I am thinking about having for a colony,” he said, “is in Central America. It is nearer to us than Liberia” (CW, vol. V, pp. 373-374).


    Bennett also documents how Lincoln so habitually used the N word that his cabinet members – and many others – were shocked by his crudeness, even during a time of pervasive white supremacy, North and South. He was also a very big fan of “black face” minstrel shows, writes Bennett.


    For generations, the so-called Lincoln scholars claimed without any documentation that Lincoln suddenly gave up on his “dream” of deporting all the black people sometime in the middle of the war, even though he allocated millions of dollars for a “colonization” program in Liberia during his administration. But the book Colonization After Emancipation by Phillip Magness and Sebastian Page, drawing on documents from the British and American national archives, proved that Lincoln was hard at work until his dying day plotting with Secretary of State William Seward the deportation of all the freed slaves. The documents produced in this book show Lincoln’s negotiations with European governments to purchase land in Central America and elsewhere for “colonization.” They were even counting how many ships it would take to complete the task.


    Lincoln’s Slavery-Forever Speech: The First Inaugural


    Lincoln’s first inaugural address, delivered on March 4, 1861, is probably the most powerful defense of slavery ever made by an American politician. In the speech Lincoln denies having any intention to interfere with Southern slavery; supports the federal Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution, which compelled citizens of non-slave states to capture runaway slaves; and also supported a constitutional amendment known as the Corwin Amendment that would have prohibited the federal government from ever interfering in Southern slavery, thereby enshrining it explicitly in the text of the U.S. Constitution.


    Lincoln stated at the outset of his first inaugural address that “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” Furthermore, “Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them; and more than this, they placed in the [Republican Party] platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read: Resolved, that the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each state to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to the balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend . . .” By “domestic institutions” Lincoln meant slavery.


    Lincoln also strongly supported the Fugitive Slave Clause and the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act in his first inaugural address by reminding his audience that the Clause is a part of the Constitution that he, and all members of Congress, swore to defend. In fact, the Fugitive Slave Act was strongly enforced all during the Lincoln administration, as documented by the scholarly book, The Slave Catchers, by historian Stanley Campbell (University of North Carolina Press, 2011). “The Fugitive Slave Law remained in force and was executed by federal marshals” all during the Lincoln regime, writes Campbell. For example, he writes that “the docket for the [Superior] Court [of the District of Columbia] listed the claims of twenty-eight different slave owners for 101 runaway slaves. In the two months following the court’s decision [that the law was applicable to the District], 26 fugitive slaves were returned to their owners . . .” This was in Washington, D.C., Lincoln’s own residence.


    Near the end of his first inaugural address (seven paragraphs from the end) Lincoln makes his most powerful defense of slavery by saying: “I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution . . . has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service [i.e., slaves]. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable” (emphasis added).


    The Corwin Amendment, named for Rep. Thomas Corwin of Ohio, said:
    “No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which shall authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any state, the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor [i.e., slaves] or service by the laws of said State.”


    After all the Southern members of Congress had left, the exclusively-Northern U.S. Congress voted in favor of the Corwin Amendment by a vote of 133-65 in the House of Representatives on February 28, 1861, and by a vote of 24-12 in the U.S. Senate on March 2, two days before Lincoln’s inauguration.


    Lincoln lied in his first inaugural address when he said that he had not seen the Corwin Amendment. Not only did he support the amendment in his speech; it was his idea, as documented by Doris Kearns-Goodwin in her worshipful book on Lincoln entitled Team of Rivals. Based on primary sources, Goodwin writes on page 296 that after he was elected and before he was inaugurated Lincoln “instructed Seward to introduce these proposals in the Senate Committee of Thirteen without indicating they issued from Springfield.” “These proposals” were 1) the Corwin Amendment; and 2) a federal law to nullify personal liberty laws created by several states to allow them to nullify the Fugitive Slave Act.


    In 1860-61 Lincoln and the Republican Party fiercely defended Southern slavery while only opposing the extension of slavery into the new territories. They gave three reasons for this:


    (1) “Many northern whites . . . wanted to keep slaves out of the [new territories] in order to keep blacks out. The North was a pervasively racist society . . . . Bigots, they sought to bar African-American slaves from the West,” wrote University of Virginia historian Michael Holt in his book, The Fate of Their Country (p. 27).


    (2) Northerners did not want to have to compete for jobs with black people, free or slave. Lincoln himself said that “we” want to preserve the territories for “free white labor”.


    (3) If slaves were brought into the territories it could inflate the congressional representation of the Democratic Party once a territory became a state because of the three-fifths clause of the Constitution that counted five slaves as three persons for purposes of determining how many congressional representatives each state would have. The Republican Party feared that this might further block their economic policy agenda of high protectionist tariffs to protect Northern manufacturers from competition; corporate welfare for road, canal, and railroad-building corporations; a national bank; and a giving away, rather than selling, of federal land (mostly to mining, timber, and railroad corporations). Professor Holt quotes Ohio Congressman Joshua Giddings explaining: “To give the south the preponderance of political power would be itself to surrender our tariff, our internal improvements [a.k.a. corporate welfare], our distribution of proceeds of public lands . . .” (p. 28).


    Lincoln called the Emancipation Proclamation a “war measure,” which meant that if the war ended the next day, it would become null and void. It only applied to “rebel territory” and specifically exempted by name areas of the South that were under Union Army control at the time, such as most of the parishes of Louisiana; and entire states like West Virginia, the last slave state to enter the union, having been created during the war by the Republican Party. That is why historian James Randall wrote that it “freed no one.” The apparent purpose was to incite slave rebellions, which it failed to do. Slavery was finally ended in 1866 by the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, with virtually no assistance from Lincoln, as described by Pulitzer prize-winning Lincoln biographer David Donald in his book, Lincoln. On page 545 of his magnum opus David Donald writes of how Lincoln refused to lift a finger to help the genuine abolitionists accumulate votes in Congress for the Thirteenth Amendment. Stories that he did help, such as the false tale told in Steven Spielberg’s movie about Lincoln, are based on pure “gossip,” not documented history, wrote Donald.


    Lincoln Promises War Over Tax Collection


    In contrast to his compromising stance on slavery, Lincoln was totally and completely uncompromising on the issue of tax collection in his first inaugural address, literally threatening war over it. For decades, Northerners had been attempting to plunder Southerners (and others) with high protectionist tariffs. There was almost a war of secession in the late 1820s over the “Tariff of Abominations” of 1828 that increased the average tariff rate (essentially a sales tax in imports) to 45%. The agricultural South would have been forced to pay higher prices for clothing, farm tools, shoes, and myriad other manufactured products that they purchased mostly from Northern businesses. South Carolina nullified the tariff, refusing to collect it, and a compromise was eventually reached to reduce the tariff rate over a ten-year period.


    By 1857 the average tariff rate had declined to about 15%, and tariff revenues accounted for at least 90% of all federal tax revenue. This was the high water mark of free trade in the nineteenth century. Then, with the Republican Party in control of Congress and the White House, the average tariff rate was increased, by 1863, back up to 47%, starting with the Morrill Tariff, which was signed into law on March 2, 1861, two days before Lincoln’s inauguration by Pennsylvania steel industry protectionist President James Buchanan. (It had first passed in the House of Representatives during the 1859-60 session).


    Understanding that the Southern states that had seceded and had no intention of continuing to send tariff revenues to Washington, D.C., Lincoln threatened war over it. “[T]here needs to be no bloodshed or violence,” he said in his first inaugural address, “and there shall be none unless it is forced upon the national authority.”


    And what could “force” the “national authority” to commit acts of “violence” and “bloodshed”? Lincoln explained in the next sentence: “The power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere.” “Pay up or die; the American union is no longer voluntary” was his principal message. In Lincoln’s mind, the union was more like what would become the Soviet union than the original, voluntary union of the founding fathers. He kept his promise by invading the Southern states with an initial 75,000 troops after duping South Carolinians into firing upon Fort Sumter (where no one was harmed, let alone killed).


    The Stated Purpose of the War


    The U.S. Senate issued a War Aims Resolution that said: “[T]his war is not waged . . . in any spirit of oppression, or for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, or purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those [Southern] states, but to defend . . . the Constitution, and to preserve the Union . . .” By “established institutions” of the Southern states they meant slavery.


    Like the U.S. Senate, Lincoln also clearly stated that the purpose of the war was to “save the union” and not to interfere with Southern slavery. In a famous August 22, 1862 letter to New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley, he wrote that:


    “My paramount objective 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; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.” Of course, Lincoln’s war destroyed the voluntary union of the founding fathers and replaced it with an involuntary union held together by threat of invasion, bloodshed, conquest, and subjugation.


    The Very Definition of Treason


    Treason is defined by Article 3, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution as follows: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” The most important word here is “them.” As in all the founding documents, “United States” is always in the plural, signifying that the “free and independent states,” as they are called in the Declaration of Independence, are united in forming a compact or confederacy with other states. Levying war against “them” means levying war against individual states, not something called “the United States government.” Therefore, Lincoln’s invasion and levying of war upon the Southern states is the very definition of treason in the Constitution.


    Lincoln took it upon himself to arbitrarily redefine treason, not by amending the Constitution, but by using brute military force. His new definition was any criticism of himself, his administration, and his policies. He illegally suspended the writ of Habeas Corpus (illegal according to this own attorney general, Robert Bates) and had the military arrest and imprison without due process tens of thousands of Northern-state citizens, including newspaper editors, the Maryland legislature, the mayor of Baltimore, the grandson of Francis Scott Key who was a Baltimore newspaper editor, Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio, his chief critic in the U.S. Congress, and essentially anyone overheard criticizing the government. (See Freedom Under Lincoln by Dean Sprague and Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln by James Randall).


    More than 300 Northern newspapers were shut down for criticizing the Lincoln regime as documented by James Randall, the preeminent Lincoln scholar of the twentieth century.


    Lincoln’s Real Agenda: A Mercantilist Empire


    Lincoln began his political career in 1832 as a Whig. Northern Whigs like Lincoln were the party of the corporate plutocracy who wanted to use the coercive powers of government to line the pockets of their big business benefactors (and of themselves). They proclaimed to stand for what their political predecessor, Alexander Hamilton, called the “American System.” This was really an Americanized version of the rotten, corrupt system of British “mercantilism” that the colonists had rebelled against. Its planks included protectionist tariffs to benefit Northern manufacturers and their banking and insurance industry business associates; a government-run national bank to provide cheap credit to politically-connected businesses; and “internal improvement subsidies,” which we today would call “corporate welfare,” for canal-, road-, and railroad-building corporations. So when Lincoln first ran for political office in Illinois in 1832 he announced: “I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by many friends to become a candidate for the legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s dance. I am in favor of a national bank . . . in favor of the internal improvements system and a high protective tariff.” He would devote his entire political career for the next twenty-nine years on that agenda.


    The major opposition to Lincoln’s agenda of a mercantilist empire modeled after the British empire had always been from the South, as Presidents Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, and Tyler, among others, vetoed or obstructed Whig and later, Republican, legislation. There were Southern supporters of this agenda, and Northern, Jeffersonian opponents of it, but it is nevertheless true that the overwhelming opposition to this Northern, Hamiltonian scheme came from the Jeffersonian South.


    Henry Clay was the leader of the Whigs until his death in 1852, and Lincoln once claimed that he got all of his political ideas from Clay, who he eulogized as “the beau ideal of a statesman.” In reality, the Hamilton/Clay/Lincoln “American System” was best described by Edgar Lee Masters, who was Clarence Darrow’s law partner and a renowned playwright (author of The Spoon River Anthology). In his book, Lincoln the Man (p. 27), Masters wrote that:
    “Henry clay was the champion of that political system which doles favors to the strong in order to win and to keep their adherence to the government. His system offered shelter to devious schemes and corrupt enterprises . . . He was the beloved son of Alexander Hamilton with his corrupt funding schemes, his superstitions concerning the advantage of a public debt, and a people taxed to make profits for enterprises that cannot stand alone. His example and his doctrines led to the creation of a party that had not platform to announce, because its principles were plunder and nothing else.”


    This was the agenda that Abraham Lincoln devoted his entire political life to. The “American System” was finally fully enacted with Lincoln’s Pacific Railroad Bill, which led to historic corruption during the Grant administration with its gargantuan subsidies to railroad corporations and others; fifty years of high, protectionist tariffs that continued to plunder Agricultural America, especially the South and the Mid-West, for the benefit of the industrial North; the nationalization of the money supply with the National Currency Acts and Legal Tender Acts; and the beginnings of a welfare state with veterans’ pensions. Most importantly, the system of federalism that was established by the founding fathers was all but destroyed with a massive shift in political power to Washington, D.C. and away from the people, due to the abolition (at gunpoint) of the rights of nullification and secession.


    Lincoln’ Biggest Failure


    Slavery was ended peacefully everywhere else in the world during the nineteenth century. This includes Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York, where slaves were once used to build slave ships that sailed out of New York, Providence, Hartford, Providence, and Boston harbors. There were still slaves in New York City as late as 1853.


    Nobel prize-winning economist Robert Fogel and co-author Stanley Engerman, in their book, Time on the Cross, describe how the British, Spanish, and French empires, as well as the Swedes, Danes, and Dutch, ended slavery peacefully during the nineteenth century. Whenever slaves did participate in wars in Central America and elsewhere, it was because they were promised freedom by one side in the war; the purpose of the wars, however, was never to free the slaves.


    The British simply used tax dollars to purchase the freedom of the slaves and then legally ended the practice. The cost of the “Civil War” to Northern taxpayers alone would have been sufficient to achieve the same thing in the U.S. Instead, the slaves were used as political pawns in a war that ended with the death of as many as 850,000 Americans according to the latest research (the number was 620,000 for the past 100 years or so), with more than double that amount maimed for life, physically and psychologically. (Lincoln did make a speech in favor of “compensated emancipation” in the border states but insisted that it be accompanied by deportation of any emancipated slaves. He never used his “legendary” political skills, however, to achieve any such outcome, as a real statesman would have done – minus the deportation).


    The Glory of the Coming of the Lord?


    By the mid nineteenth century the world had evolved such that international law and the laws of war condemned the waging of war on civilians. It was widely recognized that civilians would always become casualties in any war, but to intentionally target them was a war crime.


    The Lincoln regime reversed that progress and paved the way for all the gross wartime atrocities of the twentieth century by waging war on Southern civilians for four long years. Rape, pillage, plunder, the bombing and burning of entire cities populated only by civilians was the Lincolnian way of waging war – not on foreign invaders but on his own fellow American citizens. (Lincoln did not consider secession to be legal; therefore, he thought of all citizens of the Southern states to be American citizens, not citizens of the Confederate government).


    General Sherman said in a letter to his wife that his purpose was “extermination, not of soldiers alone, that is the least part of the trouble, but the people” (Letter from Sherman to Mrs. Sherman, July 31, 1862). Two years later, he would order his artillery officers to use the homes of Atlanta occupied by women and children as target practice for four days, while much of the rest of the city was a conflagration. The remaining residents were then kicked out of their homes – in November with the onset of winter. Ninety percent of Atlanta was demolished after the Confederate army had left the city.


    General Philip Sheridan similarly terrorized the civilians of the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. All of this led historian Lee Kennett, in his biography of Sherman, to honestly state that “had the Confederates somehow won, had their victory put them in position to bring their chief opponents before some sort of tribunal, they would have found themselves justified . . . in stringing up President Lincoln and the entire Union high command for violation of the laws of war, specifically for waging war against noncombatants” (Lee Kennett, Marching Through Georgia: The Story of Soldiers and Civilians During Sherman’s Campaign, p. 286).


    About All Those Statues


    Professor Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995) was perhaps the most famous academic libertarian in the world during the last half of the twentieth century. A renowned Austrian School economist, he also wrote widely on historical topics, especially war and foreign policy. In a 1994 essay entitled “Just War” (online at https://mises.org/library/just-war), Rothbard argued that the only two American wars that would qualify as just wars (defined as wars to ward off a threat of coercive domination) were the American Revolution and the South’s side in the American “Civil War.” Without getting into his detailed explanation of this, his conclusion is especially relevant and worth quoting at length:


    n this War Between the States, the South may have fought for its sacred honor, but the Northern war was the very opposite of honorable. We remember the care with which the civilized nations had developed classical international law. Above all, civilians must not be targeted; wars must be limited. But the North insisted on creating a conscript army, a nation in arms, and broke the 19th-century rules of war by specifically plundering and slaughtering civilians, by destroying civilian life and institutions so as to reduce the South to submission. Sherman’s famous march through Georgia was one of the great war crimes, and crimes against humanity, of the past century-and-a-half. Because by targeting and butchering civilians, Lincoln and Grant and Sherman paved the way for all the genocidal horrors of the monstrous 20th century. . . . As Lord Acton, the great libertarian historian, put it, the historian, in the last analysis, must be a moral judge. The muse of the historian, he wrote, is not Clio but Rhadamanthus, the legendary avenger of innocent blood. In that spirit, we must always remember, we must never forget, we must put in the dock and hang higher than Haman, those who, in modern times, opened the Pandora’s Box of genocide and the extermination of civilians: Sherman, Grant, and Lincoln.

    Perhaps, some day, their statues will be toppled and melted down; their insignias and battle flag will be desecrated, and their war songs tossed into the fire.

    Perhaps, some day. But in the meantime, and for the past 150 years, the mountain of lies that has concocted the Lincoln Myth has been invoked over and over again to “justify” war after war, all disguised as some great moral crusade, but in reality merely a tool to enrich the already wealthy-beyond-their-wildest-dreams military/industrial complex and its political promoter class. As Robert Penn Warren wrote in his 1960 book, The Legacy of the Civil War, the Lincoln Myth, painstakingly fabricated by the Republican Party, long ago created a “psychological heritage” that contends that “the Northerner, with his Treasury of Virtue” caused by his victory in the “Civil War,” feels as though he has “an indulgence, a plenary indulgence, for all sins past, present, and future.” This “indulgence,” wrote Warren, “is the justification for our crusades of 1917-1918 and 1941-1945 and our diplomacy of righteousness, with the slogan of unconditional surrender and universal rehabilitation for others” (emphasis added). Robert Penn Warren believed that most Americans were content with all of these lies about their own history, the work of what he called “the manipulations of propaganda specialists,” referring to those who describe themselves as “Lincoln scholars.”

    Thomas DiLorenzo is a professor at Loyola University in Maryland. Among his books are: The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War; Lincoln Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe; Hamilton’s Curse: How Jefferson’s Arch-Enemy Betrayed the American Revolution and What It Means for Americans Today.
    Pfizer Macht Frei!

    Openly Straight Man, Danke, Awarded Top Rated Influencer. Community Standards Enforcer.


    Quiz: Test Your "Income" Tax IQ!

    Short Income Tax Video

    The Income Tax Is An Excise, And Excise Taxes Are Privilege Taxes

    The Federalist Papers, No. 15:

    Except as to the rule of appointment, the United States have an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and money; but they have no authority to raise either by regulations extending to the individual citizens of America.

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by charrob View Post
    Thanks for your explanation and post. My knowledge of history isn’t so good, so it helps to converse with others.

    I’ve seen this argument regarding why the civil war was fought being bandied about by both sides, so when I saw Roberts’ article, I thought to post it to see what arguments might arise here on RPForums.




    Went ahead and looked this up and from what I am seeing it appears that Lincoln, in his inaugural, actually said he would enforce the fugitive slave law and he would not stop slavery from expanding further:

    • Slavery in the Territories: Lincoln asserted that nothing in the Constitution expressly said what either could or could not be done regarding slavery in the territories. He indicated his willingness to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, so long as free blacks could be protected from being kidnapped and illegally sold into slavery through its misuse.

    So Lincoln, in his inaugural speech, seems to be giving the south everything they wanted regarding slavery. Yet they still wanted their independence from the union. So that would seem to confirm what Roberts’ is saying – that they were fighting for reasons other than slavery. Add to that the book of letters from both union and confederate soldiers which Roberts' discusses in which a reading of their letters gives no indication that they were fighting about slavery.
    You shouldn't just read someone else's interpretation of Lincoln's speech. You should read the actual speech. Here's the part in question. It doesn't say what the person you quoted said it said.

    I now reiterate these sentiments, and in doing so I only press upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible that the property, peace, and security of no section are to be in any wise endangered by the now incoming Administration. I add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution and the laws, can be given will be cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause—as cheerfully to one section as to another. 5
    There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:

    No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.

    It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution—to this provision as much as to any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause "shall be delivered up" their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not with nearly equal unanimity frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath? 7
    There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by national or by State authority, but surely that difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to others by which authority it is done. And should anyone in any case be content that his oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept? 8
    Again: In any law upon this subject ought not all the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be not in any case surrendered as a slave? And might it not be well at the same time to provide by law for the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States"?


    Note what is actually said by Lincoln.

    1. The U.S. Constitution itself required escaped slaves to be returned and Lincoln in this speech was not going to overturn the Constitution.
    2. The Constitution did not say who should return fugitive slaves to their masters. Southern states wanted federal enforcement of fugitive slave laws because free states had begun non enforcement of such laws! Think of it in terms of the "sanctuary cities" question of today. It the states don't enforce a law, and the federal government doesn't step in and enforce the law, how is the law at all enforced?
    3. Lincoln specifically called out the practice of free blacks, blacks who had actually purchased their freedom, had their freedom purchased for them, or were born free, being kidnapped and forced into slavery. That practice was documented in the recent Hollywood docudrama "Thirteen years a slave" which covers the story of a free black man who was kidnapped and forced into slavery and escaped back North.

    It's simply not at all accurate to say that Lincoln's speech was "everything the South wanted." If it was, the South would not have seceded.

    More from Lincoln's speech.

    All profess to be content in the Union if all constitutional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right plainly written in the Constitution has been denied? I think not. Happily, the human mind is so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this. Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might in a moral point of view justify revolution; certainly would if such right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to them by affirmations and negations, guaranties and prohibitions, in the Constitution that controversies never arise concerning them. But no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. No foresight can anticipate nor any document of reasonable length contain express provisions for all possible questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or by State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say.

    And:

    One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive-slave clause of the Constitution and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave trade are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, can not be perfectly cured, and it would be worse in both cases after the separation of the sections than before. The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived without restriction in one section, while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by the other.

    Lincoln here clearly lays out one issue, the expansion of slavery into new territory, and tries to gloss over the other issue, the non-enforcement of the fugitive slave laws. To the fugitive slave laws he says "Oh their being enforced but it's just not the federal government's job." But southern states specifically objected to non-enforcement of fugitive slave laws. You can find archives of southern declarations of secession here:

    https://www.civilwar.org/learn/prima...eceding-states

    This is what Mississippi said:

    It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.

    Can you see it now? Lincoln said "The constitution doesn't require the federal government to enforce the fugitive slave law." Mississippi and other states complained that, as far as they were concerned, the lack of enforcement of the fugitive slave law amounted to "nullification" of the fugitive slave law. And this shows that the south really didn't give a rip about states rights! Seriously. They were mad because other states were exercising their "right" not to enforce laws they found morally objectionable. And in a way, while I disagree with what the sanctuary cities are doing, that is another states rights issue. However the federal government can withhold funds from allocated to law enforcement from states and cities that don't enforce the law. But in the 19th century there was not so much federal funding going to states that the "power of the purse" on that regard didn't exist.

    The other issue, the expansion of slavery into new territory is an issue that everyone agreed was front and center leading up to the civil war. I already quoted you what Lincoln said. Here's what Mississippi said.

    It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.

    It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.


    Can you see it now? Mississippi and other states came to the logical conclusion that by seeking to stop the expansion of slavery, the free states were seeking to end slavery. Lincoln made it clear that he did not believe the constitution required the expansion of slavery in his inaugural address. The republican party was founded on the idea that slavery should not be allowed to expand and Lincoln was a republican. Lincoln was certainly not trying to throw gasoline on the secession fire, but he made it clear that the policies he supported were in line with what Mississippi and other states wanted. They wanted the expansion of slavery. They wanted federal enforcement of fugitive slave laws. Lincoln was going in the opposite direction, even though he wasn't being bombastic about it because he didn't want to see the union dissolved. Ron Paul is against abortion. But Ron Paul is not bombastic in his approach against abortion. Some in the pro-life community criticize Dr. Paul for not being bombastic.


    Jim, here is a counter-argument:

    “The country experienced a period of lower tariffs and vibrant economic growth from 1846 to 1857. Then a bank failure caused the Panic of 1857. Congress used this situation to begin discussing a new tariff act, later called the Morrill Tariff of 1861. However, those debates were met with such Southern hostility that the South seceded before the act was passed.” Also, according to this article, the south was paying for 90% of the federal government via tariffs: “At the time, 90 percent of the federal government’s annual revenue came from these taxes on imports [from the south].”
    That is a very weak counter argument. The North did not have the votes to increase tariffs until the South seceded. All the South had to do was to not secede in order to keep tariffs low!


    Dates southern States seceded:

    • Seven states seceded by February 1861:
    • South Carolina (December 20, 1860)
    • Mississippi (January 9, 1861)
    • Florida (January 10, 1861)
    • Alabama (January 11, 1861)
    • Georgia (January 19, 1861)
    • Louisiana (January 26, 1861)
    • Texas (February 1, 1861)
      After President Lincoln called for "troops to suppress the rebellion in the Southern states," four more states seceded:
    • Virginia (April 17, 1861)
    • Arkansas (May 6, 1861)
    • North Carolina (May 20, 1861)
    • Tennessee (June 8, 1861)
    Note that the timeline you posted actually supports what I'm saying. The Morrill Tariff was not adopted until March 2, 1861. By that time seven states had already seceded. That's 14 senators. The Tariff passed by a vote of 25 to 14. Do the math. Take the 14 senators who did not vote because their states had seceded, add that to the 14 senators who voted against the tariff, and the tariff would have failed by a vote of 25 to 28. Add in the 5 southern democrats who abstained, likely because they didn't see a way to get to a majority of votes, and the tariff would have failed 25 to 32.

    See:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morril...#Senate_action
    The Morrill bill was brought to the Senate floor for a vote on February 20, and passed 25 to 14. The vote was split almost completely down party lines. It was supported by 24 Republicans and Democrat William Bigler of Pennsylvania. It was opposed by 10 Southern Democrats, 2 Northern Democrats, and 2 Far West Democrats. 12 Senators abstained, including 3 Northern Democrats, 1 California Democrat, 5 Southern Democrats, 2 Republicans, and 1 Unionist from Maryland.[10]

    Thanks, just added this to my Netflix Queue! �� btw, am not trying to defend the south; am just trying to figure out what the truth is.
    You're welcome! And I think discussions like this are helpful. I neither support the "Saint Lincoln" view of history nor the "beloved South" view of history. All of the facts should be put out on the table.
    9/11 Thermate experiments

    Winston Churchhill on why the U.S. should have stayed OUT of World War I

    "I am so %^&*^ sick of this cult of Ron Paul. The Paulites. What is with these %^&*^ people? Why are there so many of them?" YouTube rant by "TheAmazingAtheist"

    "We as a country have lost faith and confidence in freedom." -- Ron Paul

    "It can be a challenge to follow the pronouncements of President Trump, as he often seems to change his position on any number of items from week to week, or from day to day, or even from minute to minute." -- Ron Paul
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    The road to hell is paved with good intentions. No need to make it a superhighway.
    Quote Originally Posted by osan View Post
    The only way I see Trump as likely to affect any real change would be through martial law, and that has zero chances of success without strong buy-in by the JCS at the very minimum.

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Danke View Post
    http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017...merica-empire/
    The Lincoln Myth: Ideological Cornerstone of the America Empire


    Thomas DiLorenzo
    Hello Danke. For the record I don't consider Thomas DiLorenzo much of a historian. To be a real historian you have to look at all sides of an issue. Thomas simply focuses on the "hate Lincoln" side. He does not at all delve into the abuses of the confederacy, not just against blacks but also against poor whites. I doubt you will ever, for instance, see Mr. DiLorenzo give much thought to the confederacy enslaving poor white farmers through a draft on the right of southerners who didn't agree with secession to secede from their respective states. Lincoln's inaugural address, which I've posted a link to and you can read for yourself, sets out the two main issues that were dividing the country.

    1) Who should enforce the fugitive slave laws?
    2) Should slavery be allowed to expand?

    The southern states made it clear that they saw the non enforcement to the point of "nullification" of the fugitive slave laws and the blocking of the expansion of slavery into new territories as existential threats to their way of life. Mr. DiLorenzo's single minded focus on "taking Lincoln down a peg" really does nothing to address either of those two issues, and while interesting in the biological sense, tell us nothing about whether or not the Civil War was fought over slavery. It's really just ad hominem on the part of Mr. DiLorenzo.
    9/11 Thermate experiments

    Winston Churchhill on why the U.S. should have stayed OUT of World War I

    "I am so %^&*^ sick of this cult of Ron Paul. The Paulites. What is with these %^&*^ people? Why are there so many of them?" YouTube rant by "TheAmazingAtheist"

    "We as a country have lost faith and confidence in freedom." -- Ron Paul

    "It can be a challenge to follow the pronouncements of President Trump, as he often seems to change his position on any number of items from week to week, or from day to day, or even from minute to minute." -- Ron Paul
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    The road to hell is paved with good intentions. No need to make it a superhighway.
    Quote Originally Posted by osan View Post
    The only way I see Trump as likely to affect any real change would be through martial law, and that has zero chances of success without strong buy-in by the JCS at the very minimum.

  14. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by 1stvermont View Post
    what causes southern secession? well i cover this on these threads, the main issue was state sovereignty. Tariffs, states rights, slavery and a host of other issues also contributed.


    Ill Take my Stand Causes of Southern Secession- the Upper South
    http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...he-Upper-South

    Causes of Southern Secession- the Cotton States

    http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...-Cotton-States


    I invite all to come post and debate it there.
    Hello 1stvermont. The South didn't give a crap about state sovereignty. If they did then the nullification of the fugitive slave laws by Northern states would not have bothered them. This is what Mississippi had to say about nullification.

    It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.

    It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.

    It tramples the original equality of the South under foot.

    It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.

    It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.

    It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice.

    It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.

    It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.


    Note the blatant racism in Mississippi's declaration of secession. They were angry at the idea that the "negro" could be equal to the white man and the same time claiming they were seeking the "betterment" of the "negro" by keeping him a slave.
    9/11 Thermate experiments

    Winston Churchhill on why the U.S. should have stayed OUT of World War I

    "I am so %^&*^ sick of this cult of Ron Paul. The Paulites. What is with these %^&*^ people? Why are there so many of them?" YouTube rant by "TheAmazingAtheist"

    "We as a country have lost faith and confidence in freedom." -- Ron Paul

    "It can be a challenge to follow the pronouncements of President Trump, as he often seems to change his position on any number of items from week to week, or from day to day, or even from minute to minute." -- Ron Paul
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    The road to hell is paved with good intentions. No need to make it a superhighway.
    Quote Originally Posted by osan View Post
    The only way I see Trump as likely to affect any real change would be through martial law, and that has zero chances of success without strong buy-in by the JCS at the very minimum.

  15. #13
    jmdrake has make a good summary of the role slavery plays in the war. It became the proxy issue of federal vs. state authority and the Dred Scot decision was a clear victory for the southern point of view which was not shared by the free states. As a result of the SCOTUS case (A) even freed slaves and free born blacks could not be citizens unless naturalized as citizens by Congress. (B) Slaves were defined as property and thus had no rights at all - including the ability of a slave holder to transmit through a free state with a slave that the free state could not free unless the slave owner established residence in the free state (not including military personnel, who were assigned to free states) (C) The decision of free state or slaves was ruled a power exclusive to state sovereignty invalidating the Missouri Compromise and ability of Congress to prohibit slavery in territories not yet states.

    That SCOTUS decision insured that the only way slavery would end would be if (A) the state prohibited it (B) Constitutional amendment. It was also clear by 1860, that at the national level, slavery was dead. Over 60% of the House members represented free districts, and after the 1860 census, free states would have even a higher percentage of Representatives. 15 of the 34 states permitted slavery, and Senators from Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky would frequently vote with the free states on slavery issues. It was clear, the 13th Amendment was on the way. It was a matter of time.

    1859 and 1860 saw record cotton exports, and the tariffs related to that were going to increase substantially in 1861 to soak off those "extra profits" for the US Government. The issue of the 1830s came back in full force. The south complained about money for improvements being spent to benefit the north, but that was an also ran complaint.

    If slavery did not exist, there would still have been conflict, slavery just ensured the resolution would be much less likely to be political, especially as the southern states decided on secession as the remedy for their complaints.

    The value that those with historical backgrounds bring to these discussions is that we have been exposed to the different interpretations of what happened and why, so that we can weigh who makes the better case and where we can obtain additional information to support or attack a particular point of view. The history buff may have complete ares of historical knowledge missing, and are more easily disposed toward believing whatever case is presented that align with previously held beliefs.
    Last edited by Pericles; 08-25-2017 at 12:48 PM.
    Out of every one hundred men they send us, ten should not even be here. Eighty will do nothing but serve as targets for the enemy. Nine are real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, upon them depends our success in battle. But one, ah the one, he is a real warrior, and he will bring the others back from battle alive.

    Duty is the most sublime word in the English language. Do your duty in all things. You can not do more than your duty. You should never wish to do less than your duty.

  16. #14
    Of course the civil war was fought over slavery. Why else would the North have decided to force the South into a violent conflict costing hundreds of thousands of lives? It's because the North just really hated slavery that much.

    (Source: I took a history course in high school)
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    Donald Trump / Crenshaw 2024!!!!

    My pronouns are he/him/his

  17. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by jmdrake View Post
    Hello Danke. For the record I don't consider Thomas DiLorenzo much of a historian. To be a real historian you have to look at all sides of an issue. Thomas simply focuses on the "hate Lincoln" side. He does not at all delve into the abuses of the confederacy, not just against blacks but also against poor whites. I doubt you will ever, for instance, see Mr. DiLorenzo give much thought to the confederacy enslaving poor white farmers through a draft on the right of southerners who didn't agree with secession to secede from their respective states. Lincoln's inaugural address, which I've posted a link to and you can read for yourself, sets out the two main issues that were dividing the country.

    1) Who should enforce the fugitive slave laws?
    2) Should slavery be allowed to expand?

    The southern states made it clear that they saw the non enforcement to the point of "nullification" of the fugitive slave laws and the blocking of the expansion of slavery into new territories as existential threats to their way of life. Mr. DiLorenzo's single minded focus on "taking Lincoln down a peg" really does nothing to address either of those two issues, and while interesting in the biological sense, tell us nothing about whether or not the Civil War was fought over slavery. It's really just ad hominem on the part of Mr. DiLorenzo.
    If that were the case, there aren't many "real" historians in Murica. Have you seen a book on the American Revolution published by an American historian that tells the story honestly from the British POV? History tends to be written by the winners. The point of "revisionist" history like DiLorenzo, et al. is to give voice to the losers and/or tell the story from a different POV with new evidence.
    Quote Originally Posted by Torchbearer
    what works can never be discussed online. there is only one language the government understands, and until the people start speaking it by the magazine full... things will remain the same.
    Hear/buy my music here "government is the enemy of liberty"-RP Support me on Patreon here Ephesians 6:12

  18. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by jmdrake View Post
    The southern states stated in their declarations of secession that their main beef was protecting slavery.
    http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp

    This sentiment is, as Roberts pointed out, absent in the above linked Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union. That document reads exactly the way Roberts described it.

    You made a false claim at the beginning of your post, so I'm not sure why I should feel compelled to investigate the rest of your claims.
    There are no crimes against people.
    There are only crimes against the state.
    And the state will never, ever choose to hold accountable its agents, because a thing can not commit a crime against itself.



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  20. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by TheTexan View Post
    Of course the civil war was fought over slavery. Why else would the North have decided to force the South into a violent conflict costing hundreds of thousands of lives? It's because the North just really hated slavery that much.

    (Source: I took a history course in high school)
    In addition, being critical of St. Abraham makes you a Southern sympathizer. Which means racist.
    All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State.
    -Albert Camus

  21. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by heavenlyboy34 View Post
    If that were the case, there aren't many "real" historians in Murica. Have you seen a book on the American Revolution published by an American historian that tells the story honestly from the British POV? History tends to be written by the winners. The point of "revisionist" history like DiLorenzo, et al. is to give voice to the losers and/or tell the story from a different POV with new evidence.
    I didn't say there were. There are few statesmen in America too. I'm not going to go back a dishonest right wing politician just to counterbalance dishonest left wing politicians. I feel the same way about history.
    9/11 Thermate experiments

    Winston Churchhill on why the U.S. should have stayed OUT of World War I

    "I am so %^&*^ sick of this cult of Ron Paul. The Paulites. What is with these %^&*^ people? Why are there so many of them?" YouTube rant by "TheAmazingAtheist"

    "We as a country have lost faith and confidence in freedom." -- Ron Paul

    "It can be a challenge to follow the pronouncements of President Trump, as he often seems to change his position on any number of items from week to week, or from day to day, or even from minute to minute." -- Ron Paul
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    The road to hell is paved with good intentions. No need to make it a superhighway.
    Quote Originally Posted by osan View Post
    The only way I see Trump as likely to affect any real change would be through martial law, and that has zero chances of success without strong buy-in by the JCS at the very minimum.

  22. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by fisharmor View Post
    http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp

    This sentiment is, as Roberts pointed out, absent in the above linked Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union. That document reads exactly the way Roberts described it.

    You made a false claim at the beginning of your post, so I'm not sure why I should feel compelled to investigate the rest of your claims.
    Your own link proves you are being willfully ignorant.

    The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

    The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."

    These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.

    We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have 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.

    For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

    This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

    On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.


    Seriously, did you even read your own source?
    9/11 Thermate experiments

    Winston Churchhill on why the U.S. should have stayed OUT of World War I

    "I am so %^&*^ sick of this cult of Ron Paul. The Paulites. What is with these %^&*^ people? Why are there so many of them?" YouTube rant by "TheAmazingAtheist"

    "We as a country have lost faith and confidence in freedom." -- Ron Paul

    "It can be a challenge to follow the pronouncements of President Trump, as he often seems to change his position on any number of items from week to week, or from day to day, or even from minute to minute." -- Ron Paul
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    The road to hell is paved with good intentions. No need to make it a superhighway.
    Quote Originally Posted by osan View Post
    The only way I see Trump as likely to affect any real change would be through martial law, and that has zero chances of success without strong buy-in by the JCS at the very minimum.

  23. #20
    Yes, and in particular i read the stuff you didn't bold.
    Did you even read the OP? Because you are engaging in the exact reasoning Roberts wrote the article specifically to decry.
    There are no crimes against people.
    There are only crimes against the state.
    And the state will never, ever choose to hold accountable its agents, because a thing can not commit a crime against itself.

  24. #21
    Seriously, your whole argument is "Roberts is wrong and to prove it I'm going to follow the exact pattern he pointed out".
    There are no crimes against people.
    There are only crimes against the state.
    And the state will never, ever choose to hold accountable its agents, because a thing can not commit a crime against itself.

  25. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by otherone View Post
    In addition, being critical of St. Abraham makes you a Southern sympathizer. Which means racist.
    Those are novice racists , I despise St Abraham and slavers among many others . I am a skilled professional .

  26. #23
    I think is important to remember nearly all enlisted southerners would have come from farms with out slave labor and most would have been there because of his state being invaded . That said they would certainly been ignorant enough to believe people as property was fine .

  27. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by jmdrake View Post
    Hello 1stvermont. The South didn't give a crap about state sovereignty. If they did then the nullification of the fugitive slave laws by Northern states would not have bothered them. This is what Mississippi had to say about nullification.

    It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.

    It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.

    It tramples the original equality of the South under foot.

    It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.

    It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.

    It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice.

    It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.

    It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.


    Note the blatant racism in Mississippi's declaration of secession. They were angry at the idea that the "negro" could be equal to the white man and the same time claiming they were seeking the "betterment" of the "negro" by keeping him a slave.

    wow you have a bulletproof argument there how ever would i respond to such an argument, it truly refutes history and historical context. My whole posts are know wrong know......Or maybe you could post on my thread, read my thread, and i will gladly respond to any questions. It should also clear up your misconception on states rights.
    Last edited by 1stvermont; 08-25-2017 at 07:19 PM.



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  29. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by oyarde View Post
    Those are novice racists , I despise St Abraham and slavers among many others . I am a skilled professional .
    I imagine being a professional despiser is pretty hard on your health...
    Quote Originally Posted by Torchbearer
    what works can never be discussed online. there is only one language the government understands, and until the people start speaking it by the magazine full... things will remain the same.
    Hear/buy my music here "government is the enemy of liberty"-RP Support me on Patreon here Ephesians 6:12

  30. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by heavenlyboy34 View Post
    I imagine being a professional despiser is pretty hard on your health...
    Not really , you have to have balance . That is the key .

  31. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by oyarde View Post
    Not really , you have to have balance . That is the key .


    Do you teach Karate too?
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  32. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post


    Do you teach Karate too?
    No , but I can teach you where the tomahawk goes .

  33. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by fisharmor View Post
    Yes, and in particular i read the stuff you didn't bold.
    Did you even read the OP? Because you are engaging in the exact reasoning Roberts wrote the article specifically to decry.
    Apparently all you read is what isn't in bold. I never said slavery was the only issue. But it's the only issue that you can find repeatedly in all of the southern declarations of secession. Roberts treated slavery as if it wasn't an issue at all. And yes, I read the OP. I've read it repeatedly over the years. It's simply void of logic. Roberts logical fallacy is that just because many in the North wanted to placate the South over slavery, that meant the South's main concern wasn't slavery. But the South stated in their declarations of secession that they felt the North was seeking to extinguish slavery by restricting its expansion!

    Seriously. If Obama had proposed an amendment that said "The second amendment can never be changed", but continued all of his anti-gun policies, would you actually believe that meant he was really pro-gun? Because your swallowing of Roberts illogical argument is about as bad.
    9/11 Thermate experiments

    Winston Churchhill on why the U.S. should have stayed OUT of World War I

    "I am so %^&*^ sick of this cult of Ron Paul. The Paulites. What is with these %^&*^ people? Why are there so many of them?" YouTube rant by "TheAmazingAtheist"

    "We as a country have lost faith and confidence in freedom." -- Ron Paul

    "It can be a challenge to follow the pronouncements of President Trump, as he often seems to change his position on any number of items from week to week, or from day to day, or even from minute to minute." -- Ron Paul
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    The road to hell is paved with good intentions. No need to make it a superhighway.
    Quote Originally Posted by osan View Post
    The only way I see Trump as likely to affect any real change would be through martial law, and that has zero chances of success without strong buy-in by the JCS at the very minimum.

  34. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by fisharmor View Post
    Seriously, your whole argument is "Roberts is wrong and to prove it I'm going to follow the exact pattern he pointed out".
    Roberts "pattern" is a logical fallacy and requires one to put his brain in neutral and/or decide Southerners were either really stupid and/or intent on lying for the sake of making themselves look bad. The Southern states said, even after the proposed amendment (which never actually passed) THE NORTH SEEKS TO EXTINGUISH SLAVERY BY NOT ALLOWING IT TO EXPAND!
    9/11 Thermate experiments

    Winston Churchhill on why the U.S. should have stayed OUT of World War I

    "I am so %^&*^ sick of this cult of Ron Paul. The Paulites. What is with these %^&*^ people? Why are there so many of them?" YouTube rant by "TheAmazingAtheist"

    "We as a country have lost faith and confidence in freedom." -- Ron Paul

    "It can be a challenge to follow the pronouncements of President Trump, as he often seems to change his position on any number of items from week to week, or from day to day, or even from minute to minute." -- Ron Paul
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    The road to hell is paved with good intentions. No need to make it a superhighway.
    Quote Originally Posted by osan View Post
    The only way I see Trump as likely to affect any real change would be through martial law, and that has zero chances of success without strong buy-in by the JCS at the very minimum.

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