tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3274832501942970080.post1611354408218023946..comments2023-10-09T14:40:03.684-05:00Comments on An Intolerable Compliment: Independence Day...for whom?Joseph Reedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10553198853868798730noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3274832501942970080.post-24953265624405752122009-07-04T17:43:37.873-05:002009-07-04T17:43:37.873-05:00In brief: Southern States were anti-states rights...<b>In brief: Southern States were anti-states rights when it came to slavery.</b> This is not to be augumentative; but to add to serve as a topic of discussion.<br /><br />In the past, when I taught American History, I showed my students the quotes from Lincoln stating that he'd rather keep slavery if it meant keeping the Union.<br /><br />However, Lincoln was a Republican; and Republicans grew out of the Free Soilers. Although Lincoln did not wage the war against slavery, there is no doubt that the aim of the party was a gradualist approach to ending slavery.<br /><br />Republicans were against the expansion of slavery, believing that if slavery could be arrested in the South, it would eventually die out as an instituion.<br /><br />Although the Lincoln did not fight over slavery, as you mention, slavery was the highlighted issue by Southerners. They, as the kids would say, knew what was up. <br /><br />For example, the Vice-President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stevens, says in his <b><a href="http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Cornerstone_Speech" rel="nofollow">Cornerstone Speech</a></b> that slavery was <i>"was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution"</i> and that the cornerstone -- the very foundation of the Confederate constitution -- is <i>"the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery - subordination to the superior race - is his natural and normal condition."</i><br /><br />South Carolina's <b><a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp" rel="nofollow">Declaration of Immediate Causes</a></b> for secession begin by stating that the state is free and independent; and that the people have a right to abolish a government which fails to live up to its end of the contract. <br /><br />So, what was the "proof" that the federal government was failing to live up to its part of the contract? This is important, so I will quote it at length.<br /><br />From the South Carolina Declaration: <i>"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 [Northern states listed here] 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."</i><br /><br />In other words, Northern States asserted a right to grant freedom to slaves within their own states; and Southern States said no such right existed, denying the much ballyhooed "States' Rights" platform.<br /><br />Seven Southern states left the Union even before Lincoln was sworn in. However, their reasons for doing so were not so pure as simple "States' Rights" issues. They were trying to defend slavery.Nicholas Jagneauxhttp://www.vpcyg.comnoreply@blogger.com