Malcolm's short reading list on Southern rebellion
I am reposting a list of primary source documents, one that it would behoove the many revisionists, frauds, and crackpots infesting these forums to read before deigning to voice their uninformed presumptions to an intelligent, discerning audience, from a comment by Malcolm on the AOL poll concerning the Civil War.
Malcolm says:
"READ:
-Lincoln's first and second inaugural addresses.
-The Crittenden compromise
-Virginia Gov. John Letcher's Conditions for Settlement
-The Cornerstone Speech by A. H. Stephens
-Declaration of Causes of Seceding States for Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas"
By the way, if anyone personally connected to Ron Paul happens to stumble across this post, you may want to forward this list of recommended historical sources to him, as judging by his recent comments, he is in dire want of them. And one last thing, a word of warning: if you are a Southern hick with delusions of grandeur about your treacherous ancestors who reneged on their oath to uphold the Constitution, you may find, as you carefully work your way through these eye-opening documents, the truth you discover about the Confederacy rather embarrassing and unpleasant. Never you mind, bear with it, for truth is always painful, at first, to those unaccustomed to her termagant company, but she soon, after one gets to know her, becomes an invigorating companion. Good luck in your new quest for a competent grasp on cold-cut reality, rather than revisionist romanticism.
Nobody said slavery isn't a partial reason behind the war
However, it is quite obvious that the reason Lincoln went to war with the southern states was to preserve the union and not emancipate the slaves.
I would suggest remembering the quote from Lincoln that stated "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that...I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free."
In the end, the South was a raw material market to the north that had to be protected at all costs. This can be first seen with the Nullification Crisis of 1833 in which South Carolina objected to tariffs aimed at protecting northern manufacturing and exploiting Southern Agriculture. It was consequently solved when Andrew Jackson threatened to invade South Carolina. And if you are sure about the pure motives of the federal government just take a look at their equitable expansion westward, which I'm sure you will all remember treated the native americans in a fair and just manner. Banks, Factories, Commerce, and centralized power were the main reasons for the North's war.
Finally, if the north truly cared about the plight of the slaves, they would not have left the entire south in ruins and poverty after the war. By leaving they ensured a century of racial strife, but in the end the banks and leaders of industry had already secured their interests and did not care to continue the project.
Sincerely,
Southern Hick
P.S. ~ Damn Yankee
Wrong again, country bumpkin. It was the PRIMARY issue.
"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said the 'judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'" -Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865
Lincoln, even in the 1850s was an outspoken proponent of the abolition of slavery. It was Lincoln who, in 1849, proposed a bill for compensatory emancipation [exactly what Paul ignorantly suggested would have worked for the 4 million plus slaves in the South], which had, unsurprisingly, no takers in South. In 1858, Lincoln said, in his accepatance speech for the Senate, "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free... It will become all one thing, or all the other." DiLorenzo tells us nothing about this Lincoln in his ironically titled "The Real Lincoln" fiction, or his serious intellectual development and rigorous ethical standards. That sham historian, presents to us rather, a caricature of the commanding, magnanimous, and complex flesh-and-blood Lincoln, the greatest president in American history.
Lincoln wanted to prevent the expansion of slavery westward, and it was this above all else, that caused the slave-holding states to not allow his name on their ballots when election time came. When they lost even after putting on this crooked handicap they immediately reneged on their contract to uphold the Constitution as the "supreme law of the land", and refused to accept the properly elected president of the United States. As the secessionist commisionor, Stephen F. Hale, from Alabama, wrote in 1860: "[Lincoln's election] was nothing less than an open declaration of war, for the triumph of this new theory of government destroys the property of the south, lays waste her fields, and inaugurates all the horrors of a San Domingo servile insurrection, consigning her citizens to assassination and her wives and daughters to pollution and violation to gratify the lust of half-civilized Africans...The slave-holder and non-slave-holder must ultimately share the same fate; all be degraded to a position of equality with free Negroes, stand side by side with them at the polls, and fraternize in all the social relations of life, or else there will be an eternal war of the races, desolating the land with blood, and utterly wasting all the resources of the country."
Anyone who has studied the authentic Lincoln (i.e. reading his numerous speeches, letters, etc.) knows that he strongly believed in capitalism and in using the State to promote business interests and economic development. But this was just one aspect of his opposition to secession and slavery, and one that you have attempted to overemphasize to obscure the clear facts. I will admit, I can't help but chuckle when you talk about the North exploiting southern agriculture. We are talking about an entire region, built on the brutal exploitation of the Negroes, and you go ranting about a tariff you didn't like. Besides tariffs were not the issue in 1860 as all of those aforementioned documents will attest.
As far as the revisionist sentiment that racial strife between blacks and whites was a result of the war goes, I find it laughable, to say the least. Blacks were held captive against their will to be raped at will, whenever Masta' or his buddies got a hard on. They were frequently whipped, tortured, treated like cattle, and murdered if they even so much as attempted to learn to read, with impunity mind you. The Southerners always feared a slave insurrection [Spooner whom Ron mentioned, recommended arming the slaves for guerilla warfare against their unlawful masters], and made harsh laws enforcing the disarmament of the Negro to prevent such from succeeding. If Blacks had been happy sucking Masta's white, lilliputian dick, there would have been no need for the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. No underground railroads neither.
P.S. Damn redneck