Ulysses S. Grant

Everything I've posted rebuts what you've claimed. They aren't "segues" or "after the fact." They were statements made ABOUT secession WHILE those states were seceding. At the exact moment they seceded. As far as the Lincoln Myth goes, I've condemned many of Lincoln's actions, but this is about the causes of secession. I can only guess why you are so desperate to flee from that topic.

The south had all the votes they needed to defeat the Morrill Tariff, that is until states started seceding. NO state claimed that the Morrill Tariff or any other tariff was a cause for secession. Meanwhile, slavery got top billing in the Declarations of Causes of secession, which you are still incapable of addressing.

The sources I provided were sources CONTEMPORARY with secession. These were the explanations states gave for seceding WHILE they were seceding, not AFTER secession. Why do you feel the need to make this **** up? Never mind. I think we both know why.

I did know that. And I've addressed it. Funny how you won't address any historical sources showing that the south still thought that slavery was in peril.

Then why did the southern states say they were seceding over slavery and that they feared the Republicans would end it?

The south, as I've proven, disagreed with this sentiment, and openly said so while seceding.

Funny how you haven't actually addressed any of the historical sources I've provided.

You haven't pointed out anything I got wrong about the sequence of events. And isn't me saying it was about slavery . . . the south said it was about slavery.

And, no secession did not suddenly mean that federal property was no longer federal property.

I've pointed out errors that you made in the order of secession. You claim I've gotten something wrong, but can't explain what.

Why should I ignore what the seceding states had to say, at the time, while they were seceding, about their reasons for seceding, in documents specifically intended to outline their reasons for seceding?

Don't worry, I don't expect you to actually be able to answer. We both know you can't.

 

We also know that the southern states primarily seceded in order to preserve slavery. Because they said so. While they were seceding. See . . . their own ****ing words on the subject, which I've provided.

 

I just did, and I am most distressed that you find me disrespectable. I apologize and request most abjectly that you tell me how I did that so I may avoid such behavior in the future

 

He's tried claiming that the sources I provided were "after the fact" of secession when they were given on the exact same day as said secession. He isn't even trying.

 

While this is always a problematic calculation, particularly in the outliers, the overall equivalence of value throughout the entirety of the 19th century was 40 to 1. This means $3 was equivalent to 120 dollars today. That's still not a lot but considering the Plantation provided room and board it may be seen as subsistence which was all anyone was seen as entitled to back then.

Lincoln was big on repatriating the slaves to Africa, but it is known that calculations had been done on this and most informed men regarded it as impossible even then

 

@Farnsworth
I went ahead and looked up the exact numbers. The Morrill Tariff passed 25 to 14 in the Senate, the remainder abstaining. By that time, 7 states had seceded, meaning if they had remained and their representatives had voted against the tariff, then the tariff would have failed 28 to 25.

And that's assuming it would have even been brought to a vote . . . which it wouldn't have. Before states started seceding, Democrats had control of the Senate and, more importantly, they had Hunter chairing the Finance Committee. He was sitting on the tariff and had it tabled. It would have stayed that way if states hadn't started seceding.

TL;DR - they had the votes to defeat the tariff, and it never would have come to a vote anyway if they hadn't started seceding.

None of the seceding states mentioned this tariff in their Declaration of Causes; slavery got top billing. You can also look up their respective secession conventions and the letters written by the secession commissioners. It was overwhelmingly about slavery. Tariffs were barely mentioned.

The whole tariff excuse is an outdated lie, and you have it backwards. You claimed it was originally about tariffs and then the South changed their story and said it was about slavery after the fact. It was the other way around. They started by saying it was about slavery and only started playing up the tariff excuse after the fact when they wanted to try to keep their trade deals with England. It fooled rubes like Charles Dickens, but not rational thinkers like John Stuart Mill, and England eventually saw through the facade and cut bait.

 

More rubbish. I already cited sources talking about the tariffs almost to day NC seceded, all the way up to Lincoln's blockade, and Lincoln's own sniveling about 'those boys in Montgomery and their 10% tariff', yet just because you don't like the evidence, nor even know the timeline of seceding states tells me you don't know squat and never bothered to look for any evidence that contradicts your fairy story. You're just playing 'I Touched You Last!!!' with repetitive nonsense already exploded several times now.

 

While those in the Peanut Gallery who are seriously interested in this historical issue do their own research, they can look up the serious inflation caused by Lincoln's greenbacks. While paying contractors and bond holders in gold dollars, businesses were allowed to -pay their workers in greenbacks, which at one point in the war were less than 35 gold cents on the dollar. Even the accounts of slaveowners before the war show they had to spend at least $60 a year to clothe and shoe their slaves, far more than Lincoln and the Yankees' $36 a year in worthless greenbacks worth maybe $1.02 in real money. The poster quoted is of course completely ignorant of anything to do with the Civil War, same as @yardmeat is.

 

None of the Declarations of Causes mentioned the Morrill Tariff. They did, however, give prime billing to slavery. You cited NO SOURCE AT ALL showing that secession was over the tariff. I provided contemporary sources, from the south, as they were seceding, saying they were seceding over slavery. And NC never seceded over tariffs, so I don't know where you are pulling that from.

You've claimed I made some kind of mistake in my timeline . . . I've shown the mistakes you made and you haven't even bothered to even describe what supposed mistakes I made in the timeline.

Meanwhile, I've proven that, had the south not seceded, they had the votes they needed to defeat the Morrill Tariff (do you need someone to explain to you that 28 > 25? Really? Really?), and that it wouldn't have even come to a vote if it weren't for secession.

The primary sources are, unanimously, on my side on this one, no matter how much the facts may hurt your feelings.

 

So, now that your tariff argument has been completely demolished and you continue to be incapable of addressing the fact that the seceding states said, in their own words, while they were seceding, that they were seceding over slavery, you have to try to change the subject to greenbacks? Pathetic.

 

So now you you think continuing to lie is impressing anybody? lol that's cute.

 

What in the post was incorrect? Scared of actually going back to talking historical facts, I see. Cute, indeed. Practically adorable.

 

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Lincoln's "Emancipation Proclamation" only "freed" slaves in Confederate states over whom he had no authority. It was a war tactic, nothing more.

The USA did not legally 'free the slaves' until long after the civil war was over when the 14th amendment was ratified in 1868.

 

Except it let escaped and confiscated slaves know they would be free. Plus, even without the EP, the South made it clear that their primary motivation for secession and forming a new government was for the preservation of slavery. They specifically said so.

 

Except it let escaped and confiscated slaves know they would be free. Plus, even without the EP, the South made it clear that their primary motivation for secession and forming a new government was for the preservation of slavery. They specifically said so.

 

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Only a minority of Southerners owned slaves.

I have two original books [published in the 1860s] of Confederate war poetry [poems sent in by Southerners and published by Southern newspapers during the civil war.] Those poems make is very clear they were fighting for their freedom.

 

For the first few states to secede, close to half of all households owned slaves. And you didn't have to own slaves yourself to support slavery. There were a lot of reasons that non slave-holders supported slavery . . . they even wrote about it. And the primary "freedom" they seceded over was the "freedom" to own slaves. Again, they said do. Poets didn't make the call to secede. The Declarations of Causes > random poetry.

 

Me too. Washington, Jackson, Grant, T. Roosevelt, Coolidge. None in my lifetime get that far up the list.

 

Coolidge was an interesting figure of understatement. Sparse with words, big on heart, a little quirky.
In some ways, I see parallels between him and Gerald R. Ford, whom I consider to be one of the most genteel men in history.

 

One would think that the "Cornerstone" speech given by then Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens on March 21st, 1861, almost exactly 160 years ago, would have cleared this matter up.

Stephens, about the Confederacy:

"Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon 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. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."

So, there's that...

 

I have a soft spot for a debt paying, budget reducing, tax cutting president. Coolidge is one of my heroes. Jackson is on my list for eliminating the national debt entirely. His administration was the only one to do that. I put a lot of value on fiscal sanity which we haven't enjoyed for a long time.

If you extend the the list to top six, I then I include Lincoln for freeing the slaves. The only heroic president in my lifetime would fit as #7 for making the toughest decision in history to end WWII. That, of course, would be Harry Truman where the buck actually stopped. Ford, gentile as he was, wouldn't make my list. Neither would Jimmy Carter, a gentile man and good to the core who was unfit to be president. Gentility is a desirable trait for a dinner guest but not very important for a president.

 

Oh, I dunno about that. I think you can have both.

 

You can, obviously, but it isn't all that important. Andrew Jackson, was certainly not gentile but got into my top 5. Neither was Grant. He was often drunk.

 

Grant was destitute, cutting firewood to get by when he inherited 2 slaves. He could have sold the two slaves for a large amount of money. Instead, he set the slaves free.

 

He was a VERY good general. And he had the right idea. Don't worry about territory or what the papers say. Kick the asses of the rebel armies, and then we can put down the rebellion. My great grandfather served under him.