Lincoln said the Civil War was about taxes, not slavery

i think they were defending slavery because that is what their entire economy was based on. They were mainly cash crop (cotton) exporters who needed a labor intensive base.

 

Interestingly enough, the first time they almost seceded was based on the same reason, States rights, via the tariff issue. Slavery was just a part of this bigger picture.

 

The previous point of high tensions between the Northern and Southern states was actually the direct result of the Mexican American war. With the newly acquired territory there were tensions both over how the new territory would be divided, as well as which areas would be free states and which ones would be slave states . Interestingly enough secession was avoided through a compromise that included the fugitive slave act.

There was a turmoil prior that did involve tariffs, but that issue was resolved back in the early 1830s by then president Andrew Jackson. After the tariff dispute was resolved Jackson stated"The tariff was only a pretext, and disunion and southern confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question"

At the point that the southern states finally did secede (in 1860 and 1861), tariffs were the lowest they had been than at any other time during the 1800s, more than this the US's tariff rates at the time were approved by the southern states, and were written by the very congressman who ended up being elected secretary of state for the confederate states. The notion that the southern states seceded due to tariffs holds no basis whatsoever. The tariff rates at the time that the southern states began seceding (in 1860) were then at an all time low, and were written and approved by the southern states themselves. Enough said

 

It's good that you brought this up as it will come into play in illustrating my point that the tariff was indeed a great issue. Lincoln and the Republicans were running on a platform to raise the tariffs as he was a big protectionist. The tariffs were indeed low at this time thanks to the efforts of the South (for the most part, some help in the North). Even though these tariffs were low they still did not much help the South as they were paying around 80% of the tariffs as they were importing things they needed from the North. Now, you bluster about how the tariffs were low (which they were, though they had the most impact on the South who were paying most of them) so there's no way in hell the secession could involve the tariff. Really? After bringing all this up, have you completely decided to look past the context of the times? We know that "All bill for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives..." and the Republican controlled house passed the Morrill Tariff bill early in March. The bill would raise the tariff from about 15% to over 37% again with emphasis on Northern interests. It expanded the items to be taxed and of course the South already thought they were being robbed from the North and would now almost be held accountable for triple what they were already giving. Remember, the South was paying about 80% of those low tariffs to start with. South Carolina did not secede until about late December of that same year in 1860. (*)(*)(*)(*) had got real. Now you may think this a small and insignificant matter, but it is not.

 

OP, Lincoln was treated as a slave by his father, just like the middle class today are treated as slaves by the government. Before the left goes crazy about the latter comment.... You don't need chains and whips to be enslaved to others. When you work but are not able to keep the earnings from your labor to spend how you want, then you've essentially become a slave ... examples...

Women who are pimped out, no chains but ruled by fear ie.. sex slaves. Taxation, government uses fear of being jailed to force you to give them the money you exchanged your time and labor to earn. People with debt enslaved themselves,... no chains but you owe, so off to work you go.

Exchanging your time and labor only to be forced to give the money you earn to someone else who didn't not work to earn that money.

 

The middle class and especially the poor are treated like slaves BY BUSINESSES.

When you work 40 hours a week but are barely able to feed yourself and your family and keep a roof over your head...because you are paid so poorly...taxes are the least of your problem.

 

I learned a big lesson about tax cuts on one of my first jobs. I was making a decent wage (I think it was $6.50/hr...not bad at the time) working in a warehouse. Nixon gave out a tax cut and I was pretty excited. The older guys laughed at me and I soon found out why. So little taxes were actually taken out of my check and the tax cut was just a small piece of THAT...that it amounted to about a cup of coffee a day.

I'm sure the guy who owned the warehouse got enough to buy a new boat...but it didn't do much for me.

And what I later learned was that tax cuts end up cutting into programs like college loans and things that COULD have helped me out.

So tax cuts get people like us very little and hurt us in the long run.

 

Ok lets go with that. Any person or institution that takes money (the result of one's time and labor) without giving something of value in return is treating the working people as slaves.

Business hires people to do a job and pays them money to do the job. You are exchanging your time for money. That's not slavery, you agreed to exchange your time and labor for the wage they paid. They didn't force you to go to work and tell you your pay rate later. If you're not happy you have the freedom to find another job or improve your skills so you can get paid more. If you don't, that's on you and you will get paid what your labor is valued at. Key word... freedom to make changes.

But Government takes away the money people exchange their time and labor to earn. You don't have a freedom to keep the money you earned because government will throw you in jail if you don't pay them part of your earnings. No chains, but you don't have the freedom to refuse to give your money to them.

The poor? Government gives the poor money, but the poor don't give anything of value (time, labor, or knowledge) in exchange for the money government forced other people to pay to give to them. They can also be part of the slave owner system. This is government buying their votes with other peoples money. To make it even worse, the poor complain they can't get a voter ID yet say they want to do better in life. Government wants to keep people in place so they fight to give them an excuse but allow them to vote. Just take the money and vote for us.

 

Obviously you were not paying much lol. What did you expect, an entire years salary? So you want other people's money to help you out. I worked while I went to college. I never in my life took a dime or expected other people to pay my way. People like you think it's good for people to be forced to give their money away. Just because you didn't pay much therefore didn't get much of a tax cut doesn't mean others don't pay through the nose.

 

Republicans don't like the fact that they, and Lincoln are responsible for wasting the lives of 750,000 Americans for the profits of corporations. So they try to convince us that it was their moral superiority as the cause, even though Lincoln himself stated that the war was not about slaves, but about taxes....as I have proven. They don't like Lincoln's bigotry being exposed, which I have also proven.

This is no different that the republicans wasting the lives and limbs of thousands of U.S. troops for the profits of Halliburton and the rest of the military contractors in the Iraq war.

If there is a God, you will have to face the truth. And yes, I have faith that you will.

 

The South seceded over slavery.

The North wanted to preserve the Union.

 

You don't think the North had an itch to secede?

 

This is what cracks me up about hyper-partisans - There is never a topic that they won't spin, twist, or flat-out mangle in order to get in their playground taunts.

If the subject is bad things Lincoln did, then liberal/Democrats will say that Lincoln was a Republican. If the subject is good things Lincoln did, then they'd go into a long-winded explanation about how back then the Republicans were more like modern Democrats or liberals today.

And the opposite is also true. Talk about Lincoln "freeing the slaves" and Republicans will gladly claim him as their own, after all there is an (R) after his name. However, if the conversation is about how big of an SOB he was then you start hearing wailing about how he was actually a liberal.

I wonder if there isn't a direct correlation between schizophrenia and straight-line ticket voting?

 

Lincoln had no problem with conscripting hundreds of thousands to fight and die in his war. Those conscripts were nothing more than slaves, and placed in far more dangerous situations than the slaves for whose freedom they were allegedly fighting.

 

That's my point. Unless you make a LOT of money you don't pay that much in taxes....and a tax cut is only a small per centage of a small number.

As \far as the middle class and especially the poor goes...tax cuts in reality mean almost nothing

- - - Updated - - -

Wait...so all those draftees in WWII and Vietnam were slaves too?

 

Was slave labor free? The slave owner had to feed, clothe, house, and to some degree educate his slaves. That was an expensive undertaking and a cost of doing business.

Now a "free man" should be able to make enough money to feed, himself and his family, clothe them, and educate them. But when business rigs the system so that he can BARELY do that...it's "wage slavery". The business owners who pay crap wages have rigged the system so that the burden of doing all that falls on the "slave". He gives them a pittance and says "take it or leave it". Now being "free men" they can simply go find a better job...but oh crap...the system is rigged and we have "full employment" at 5% unemployment. That means that those workers are TRAPPED in that system.

Oh you say...many make it out. They rise above that.

Well some slaves were able to buy their own freedom too. That proves nothing

 

Slavery was such an integral financial, social and moral component of that American era... it just seems foolish to make any attempt to draw attention away from it... unless for academic reasons a group of history geeks aim to examine the various details they might.

To say that the American Civil War was about "slavery", is so factually/practically accurate that all that should be done... is to ADD (details) to that.

Not everyone who does this is necessarily racist, but I have often seen racist people seek to diminish what slavery was (in many different ways).

 

What a messed up OP.

Slavery was the outstanding, most important, overreaching issue.

African slavery was the Cornerstone of the Confederacy - their foundation.

We know the foundation from the Constitutional Convention forward what the gaping and most significant factor was --

things like the Missouri Compromise, the Nullification Crisis, Nat Turner, the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the 1852 SC Convention, Bleeding Kansas, where people were getting slaughted over the slavery question...

the Dred Scott decision (which made even Free Blacks non-citizens, and removed all their rights....)

the John Brown Affair, the threatened expansion of slavery in other territories, what consumed the 1856 and 1860 elections... what the GOP was founded on...

and every other ****ing detail that led up to the Civil War...as to what was the basis -- and it nearly always turned on the slavery question.

No slavery = no secession = no war.

And the war commenced months before Lincoln even stepped into office.

 

There were appox. two million volunteers Union soldiers -- only about 2% were draftees, 6% were substitutes paid by draftees.

It was the CSA who had more trouble getting volunteers, and in some places, if you didn't want to, this is what they did to you:

 

And? Those 40 or 60,000 conscripts were treated as chattel by the north. The threat of conscription led many to enlist.

The CSA weren't claiming to be morally superior and righteous when it came to treating humans as chattel, were they?

- - - Updated - - -

Yes. No one should be forced into servitude for any reason, except, perhaps, for the purpose of restitution for crimes committed. And, then, only to the victims. What reason do you think it's valid to force people to work for you, and take their lives if they refuse?

 

As I said, you are free to find another job, you are also free to get an education to improve your job skills. What makes you think that business is supposed to be a social institution. You are free to make you own choices and now you are living with the results of your choices.

 

So what's the b*tch? You pay little or nothing but you scream you want a bigger refund than people paying a hell of a lot of money in taxes?

 

There might be a few on this board.

 

Lincoln 1854

 

Lincoln 1858 5th debate with Douglas