Unlike yourself, I did not carefully pull a couple of sentences in one document out of context for my argument. I didn't "extract" anything. My point was that no extraction was necessary - the documents are consistent throughout, and I chose several representative quotes from among the many from all of them. I could have quoted the entire text of every single one of them, in support of my point. But you refuse to say what the differences are or why they exist. That is just like your claim that the Slave States feared losing their "local powers", but never put forth a local power they feared to lose. You state vague and general truths - they do not conflict with my posting. I fully agree with you that there was a reality different from the cleaned up and well-defended motives given in the documents of secession. The reality of the bigotry and fear and personal reactions with which Southerners regarded their millions of captive slaves, for example, was omitted, and only highminded rhetoric and motives for enslaving people admitted. Meanwhile, you agree that the reality you hypothesize to exist does not appear in the documents of secession, documents written by the secessionists and stating their reasons for secession. Why do you suppose they made such a big deal out of the threat Lincoln posed to their institution of slavery, if it didn't matter to them? A truism which does not allow you draw just any conclusion you want to about American history. You found complexity, you found economic aspects and so forth, but you also found that in the causes and consequences of the American Civil War all the complexities, the economics especially but also the social and political issues, were embedded in and dominated by the institution of plantation slavery. You found that because they were. It's all anyone needs who is paying attention to the thread topic - as you will find when and if you turn your attention to it.
The demographic involved, the one that switched Parties when Nixon appealed to their racial bigotry, was never all that prosperous. And the further decline of their economic fortunes under Reaganomics is a significant factor in all of this. There was also the Vietnam War. LBJ would have had a much easier time keeping the bigot vote than Hubert Humphrey had, and the political clout to keep Wallace from splitting the Democratic vote in the Jim Crow regions. And Humphrey didn't lose by all that much. So it's likely the War, rather than the loss of the bigot vote, forced Johnson's hand.
Hm, you think that there exists a politician who is interested only in some particular political power, not all of them? Let's explain it to the .... Politicians do not care about which power, they care about more vs. less power. So, if they have a chance for more power using a union, they are in favour of a union. If they find that there has been created a stable majority of Northern states, so that they will have no power at all in the union, they prefer a secession. So, your question about which power is simply meaningless. Already the "admitted" shows you are simply unable to understand these guys. Or unwilling. These guys have not admitted this, they were proud of this. These guys have used the defense of slavery, as something popular enough in all slave states, to motivate other states where slavery was legal to seceede too. It has not worked, with a lot of slave-holder states remaining in the Union and fighting on the other side. Meanwhile? As if I would have ever thought that official declarations describe reality. Ups, let's copypaste: These guys have used the defense of slavery, as something popular enough in all slave states, to motivate other states where slavery was legal to seceede too. It has not worked, with a lot of slave-holder states remaining in the Union and fighting on the other side. They dominated some political discussion and some declarations. Whatever, let's quote the leader of the other side, Lincoln: "If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln_and_slavery
Irrelevant. The question was not which powers they cared about, but which they feared losing right then, by the election of Lincoln. And you will never answer that question. No, they were not proud of the fear, the lust, the greed, the sadism, that motivated them. They did not mention these aspects of slavery, in their articles of secession. Yes. Yet more evidence of how important and central slavery was to the American Civil War. Which is how he persuaded some slave states to not secede, and wrongfooted his enemies, making Confederate recruitment among the bigots of the North difficult and undermining the main argument of the Confederacy - that Lincoln was an immediate threat to slavery, the foundation of their economy and society and entire "way of life". So about the Republicans in the South before WWII, among the racial bigots gathered in the Democratic Party - do you care about them? Their fate when the mass of bigots switched Parties?
Slavery was practiced in the North as well. The major difference was that the North also had substantial populations of free black citizens. In addition, many Northern slaveowners were somewhat kinder than their counterparts in the South. Some slaves were given Sundays off, so they could go to church and visit their kin. Some were allowed to work for other people in their spare time, and could keep the money they were paid. And finally, some Northern slaveowners simply performed manumission as they became old enough to retire: granting freedom to their slaves and allowing them to make new lives. If the South had won the Civil War, all that meant is that they would continue to be a separate country with their own government and their own laws. Nothing they did would carry across the border into the North. Some scholars suggest that in the long run, this would have ended better. The South's economy would have collapsed in a couple of decades because they almost deliberately avoided participating in the Industrial Revolution. Hell, they hardly even had a railroad network! At this point Queen Victoria would have made them an offer they could not refuse: become a British colony all over again, share in the booming economy of the British Empire... and of course obey British laws. Slavery had already been abolished in the Empire. The South would eventually have become independent, just as all other English-speaking colonies soon would, including Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Without the enmity of a brutal war, it's quite possible that the Northern and Southern American countries might have become allies. Who knows? Perhaps today, driving across the border between Virginia and Maryland would be just as easy to ignore as the one between Minnesota and Manitoba.
Johnson even understood this. He admitted that once he finished his term, the South would never again be Democratic Party territory. LBJ himself was a bit of a good ol' boy, having been caught a couple of times uttering the first syllable of the N-word and stopping himself in time. It's widely assumed that his wife Ladybird, one of the sweetest, kindest women ever to participate in American public life, goaded him into it.
Very simple - all power. If you are the local rulers, and there is a unified Northern majority in the union against you, you have to be afraid to loose every power you have. Not in one strike, but salami tactics, but this does not change the point: Once you are in a long term minority on the union level, it is in your interest to leave the union. Of course. As if you would mention the fear, the lust, the greed, the sadism, that motivates you. Sorry, not really. It was a simply explanation why slavery was made the main point in the declarations. This aim has not worked - many slave states remained in the union, slavery remained legal. So, the question remains, if he was honest - a real nationalist, who did not care about slaves at all - or if he was simply a liar, who has cheated the slave states which remained in the Union. And, ok, to ask if a democratic politician is a liar or not can be only a rhetorical question, they are liars by definition. So you may be right here. And your only inconsistency is that you, for some unknown reasons, seem to think that the Southern politicians were not liars too, but had written in a political secession document about what they really think. Why should I care about sheeple? Once they have been a minority anyway, not even the republican politicians would care about them. Or is your question about the republican politicians of the South? So, they were, of course, happy, if masses of sheeple switched parties and now elected their party, and they were already at the top there. And they would have been stupid if they would not have followed the new party line. But politicians are only "stupid" if one measures stupidity by the long term consequences of their political decisions for the sheeple. Regarding their own career, they are not stupid at all, much better than the average guy.
It doesn't matter - politicians don't lie at random, and they don't make a big deal out of stuff they think nobody cares about. Regardless of what the writers "really" thought, the documents of secession tell us what they, who were well informed and deeply interested, expected other people to think and find motivating. You have in front of you the following: 1) Slavery was the overwhelmingly dominant economic factor in the seceding States, the foundation of the economy in American South and the most important single capital resource in the United States. 2) The political movements to limit or abolish slavery were sufficiently strong and widespread that a Presidential candidate could win a national election by appealing to them even without appearing on the ballot in several slave States. 3) Every single seceding State declared that election to be a threat to their slavery, supported that declaration with extensive argument from evidence, and presented that threat alone as serious enough to justify secession from the Union. They mentioned no other threat, and they expected that argument to justify secession in the understanding of the general public as well as persuade other States to join them. 4) The new Nation they attempted to form differed from the Union in no significant respects except those directly related to slavery. Well, these sheeple (the ones who aligned themselves with the winning side and against the slaveowner side in the Civil War, with the Reconstruction and against the racial bigots in the aftermath, etc) are the thread topic, after all. Besides, as a general point yesterday's sheeple have become today's wolves quite often in history. And as a side point, if you care about people you may become better informed about them, and make better sense in your political speculations.
Agreement, except for the point that it was IMHO less directed toward "people", but toward other politicians and lawyers. But you forgot the simple difference that in their Confederation these Southeners would have had the majority, and the power. While in the former Union, they have understood that they would be the minority, and for a long time. This is what is really important for politicians. And it is certainly nothing they would write about in an official declaration. And you like to ignore that several slave states have not seceeded, and slavery was not forbidden in the Union - up to the very end of the war. Which shows that it was really not an issue, nor for the North itself, nor for the slave states which remained. If you think that the accident that this is the thread topic makes the thoughts of the sheeple more interesting for me, you err. And, no, sheeple never become wolves. They can become a murderous lynch mob, which kills a lot of other sheeple. But even in these cases, only 1% of them has the chance to become part of the 1%. And, as Davila has noted, it may be the shacks are burning and the palaces not, but if the palaces burn, the shacks burn too. You think I don't care about the sheeple? Note that my main message would help them to stop being sheeple - namely to recognize that the mass media lie to them. Those who have understood that the mass media lie, and don't believe them, are no longer sheeple, they become thinking individuals - people who think themself about what happens. Of course, most of them will fail to find out the truth, many will follow other shepards and become sheeple in other herds, but they are at least thinking, and making owo decisions about who they think is right. You, instead, repeat them the lies of the left part of the media.
With the Western states coming in they were about to see an increase their already substantial agrarian majority, and of course they were mostly Protestant Christians and in that majority, and they were largely populated by the native born, another majority - so they were looking at being in the majority in the Union for a long time. What "minority" are you talking about? It's not being ignored, the deal is that it shows no such thing. It was a legislative issue, in the Union - the President had no authority to free slaves by executive order. There was some question whether he could do that even in the seceding States who were in armed rebellion and fighting a civil war against his army - he claimed the authority under Presidential War Powers, and by the time it could be challenged in court the Thirteenth Amendment was being passed and the matter moot. Lincoln was also responsible for pushing Congress to pass the 13th Amendment, thereby proving the secessionists correct in their assessment of his agenda - one of the reasons a few of them got together and had him assassinated. That's what the British thought, when they shipped a few thousand Scotch Irish to the American colonies to enforce the Crown's will as they had in Ireland.
Good, good, getting closer, now just one more teeny tiny little step and its done: who were those people, who was it that feared being a minority under Lincoln? Remember: it wasn't the agrarian class, or the Protestants, or the native born, or the speakers of English, or the white people. Those groups were safe in their majority status for a long time.
It was the 1% of these secessing states. As usual. Among them, of course, owners of big plantations with a lot of slaves - which seems to be the answer you want to hear. Ok, if this answer makes you happy, no problem. My point is that the constallation in itself - the North controlled by one party who has managed to get a seemingly stable majority, leaving the South the role of the taxpayer for doing nice things to the Northerners, is in itself sufficient to motivate a secession. So, my view of the situation is actually (I'm open to corrections) the following: There was a small group of people really interested in freeing the slaves - the abolitionists. Small and without any real political power, nor in the North, nor in the South. There was an economical issue about allowing slavery in the new Western territory, which was not about the fate of the poor slaves, but about who owns the new land - big 1% plantage owners from the South (who would depend on slavery being legal) or potential small white farmers from the North (who liked that "regulation" of forbidding slavery to get rid of Southern competitors for land). But this issue was irrelevant as for the 99% of the South, as for those who did not plan to go West in the North. There was a widely distributed ideological rejection of slavery. It was based on the strategical error of the slaveholders to allow Christian preachers to evangelize the slaves. After this, their status changed from that of animals with ability to speak to Christians. And there was, somehow, an ideological problem to justify enslaving Christians. Which was amplified by "all men are born equal" ideology. But, as usual, such ideological questions are not important for themself. As long as they do not influence the own economic interests, they are left to Sunday speeches of no importance. Or, in democracies, to election campaigns. Then, the republicans have recognized that they can unify the economic interests of small white farmers from North and West with Northern manufactorers not interested in legalizing slavery in the North (afraid of cheap competitors from the South) with the anti-slavery ideology to create a powerful political force. And the 1% of the South have been trapped - they could not climb on this new bandwagon, because their economic power was based on slavery, and it was predictable that imigration as well as industrial revolution will only increase the power of that new Northern coalition. Thus, to fight inside the Union became hopeless, and secession their natural choice. For the population of the South, except the slaves, secession would have been ok. Abolition of slavery would have been a large change in the economics, with unclear economic consequences also for white non-slaveholders. There was no reason to expect anything good from the Union at all, the role of the South would be that of taxpayers for the North. For the population of the North, a secession would have been acceptable. The North could have been forbidden slavery completely, reject the fugitive slave laws, extend its power toward the West. The power of slavery in the South would have been decreased in time by itself, because of its low economic efficiency. Moreover, nobody in the North would have to care about the South at all - a different state, far away. For the politicians at the top of the Union, the situation was quite different - the secession was a clear decrease in their power. So they were in favour of a war. And they have done everything necessary to win the war - in particular, not forbidden slavery and not even rejecting the fugitive slave laws, as long as the slaveholder remained loyal to the Union. Moreover, the war would increase the power of the Union relative to the states, giving it much more military power, and a precedent that secession is impossible. Thus, the war was, as usual for wars, in the interest of the nationalists of the North. Slavery was more an ideological smokescreen in a simple power struggle. And Spooner's position, who was an abolitionist, but rejected the war as well as the republicans as hypocritical, seems to me the most plausible one.
But the 1% is always a minority - they were going to be a minority in the Confederacy as well. They were going to be in the 1% in the North or the South. So what did they fear? You have been corrected on the matter of "ownership" in the Western states three times now. There were just as many potential small farmers from the South as from the North, just as many rich potential investors in all kinds of ranches and plantations from the North as from the South (more, actually, waiting in the North). The small farmer/rich landowner conflict was not a North/South conflict, but intrinsic to the entire US. Why not North and West and South? Notice that Lincoln did not even try to persuade the small white farmers of the South to vote for him. But their economic interests were identical with the small white farmers of the North - right? How would legalizing slavery in the North have created cheap competitors from the South? Anti-slavery ideology included all the economic arguments. And it was still anti-slavery ideology; whether based on religion or ethics or economic self-interest, the overriding result was that the organization of the opposition to plantation slavery was Lincoln's threat to the South - they seceded to preserve plantation slavery, protect slavery from the threat posed by Lincoln. Only for the same reasons it reduced the Southern politician's power - by making their country smaller and less powerful overall. If you leave out slavery, they were in the exact same position.
They fear to be a minority among those who have the power. Which is quite different from being among the 1%. And only those who believe the lies of democratic ideology don't understand the difference. This is not a "correction" but simply your claim. "Just as many" is a claim about statistics, you know, about the "lies, horrible lies, statistics" business. Of course, the small farmer/big farmer conflict is not exactly a North/South conflict. But there is a strong enough correlation between them. Not obvious - even a small farmer may have one or two slaves, thus, not like the idea of forbidding slavery. But you forget that politics is not about the true interests of the 99%. They may play a role - if they can be used for cheating them - but this is not what really matters. Once the southern 1% have a definite interest, they will use their power to "convince" the 99% that this is also their interest. If it would really have created cheap competition for white workers by manufactorers in the North starting to hold slaves imported from the South is an open question, but what is the correct answer is quite irrelevant, because the possibility alone is quite sufficient to start fear mongering. This was one aspect. The other one is simply that what is done in the Union would have been decided by the Northerners, and the Southerners reduced to tax payers. This has been correct before Lincoln unifying the North behind the republicans. After this, they had no power in the Union at all, thus, nothing to loose from secession. The Union was no longer "their". If you leave out the question which has been used by Lincoln to reach a stable majority against the South, there would be, of course, some symmetry. Say, if the South would have succeeded to make a different question, which unifies South and West or so into a stable majority, it would have been the North who would have started secession.
Slavery was quite common in the North. After all, until the Industrial Revolution kicked into high gear around the middle of the century, the vast majority of humans were farmers, growing food for themselves and a little extra to contribute to their country's (or more likely empire) economic surplus. Northerners had slaves too, although (based on anecdotal evidence which is never the best source although the anecdotes tend to agree) they were somewhat kinder to their slaves, for example giving them Sundays off so they could become good Christians, and in some cases allowing them to do odd jobs for other people and keep the money. Some Northerners also practiced something that was rare in the South: manumission. When the patriarch of the family reached retirement age, with enough assets to be able to retire from farming, it was not terribly unusual to simply free all his slaves. There was a sizeable population of free Africans and their descendants in the North, to the extent that anyone living in a medium-size city had gotten used to seeing them going about their business and being more-or-less good citizens. There was one famous rebellion, spearheaded by Harriet Tubman (she of the "Underground Railway") that made a difference in an important battle near the North-South border. But apparently slave rebellions were not as common as Lincoln had hoped. The Emancipation Proclamation only applied to the slaves in the states that had declared secession. Lincoln was not ready to piss off all the slaveholders in the North! And since he didn't actually have the power to send civil servants into the Confederacy to enforce emancipation, it's generally assumed that all he could hope for was that the slaves in the South would be encouraged by his words and rebel, causing the South's economy to deteriorate even further. Considering that the seat of the U.S. government (the District of Columbia) was in a Northern state (Maryland--the government had already retroceded Arlington County back to Virginia), it's not clear how the North could have seceded from itself. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
In terms of wealth, they were among the 1% in the United States as easily as in the South alone. Remember that slaves were the greatest single store of capital in the US. What - exactly - was "minority" about these rich and powerful men? The small farmers of the South greatly outnumbered the large farmers, as well as the rich. The small farmers of the North greatly outnumbered the large farmers, as well as the rich. So what "correlation" are you talking about? So when you are trying to find an issue of conflict between the small farmers of the North and those of the South, you come up with slavery. That's not surprising - so does everybody else. So the 1% backing Lincoln organized the citizens of the North around opposition to slavery, and the 1% so opposed to Lincoln they wanted to secede organized the citizens of the South around defending slavery. You appear confused about how power is distributed in the US system. The President doesn't have all of it. Except for slavery, of course, the politicians in the South did not stand to lose any more power with Lincoln's election than any other Party had lost with any other Party's candidate for President being elected - we see that all the time in this country, with one Party and another attaining the Presidency. The Presidency is actually more powerful now than in Lincoln's day, and still a President like Obama is sharply limited in what they can do. Meanwhile, Lincoln didn't unify people based on their geographical location - he unified people based on their opposition to slavery. Any politician in the South who was opposed to slavery could have been part of Lincoln's unity. Slavery was the only "power" anyone in the South stood to lose.
Minority in the institutions which have had the political power at that time. If you don't want to see the correlations you don't like, it makes no sense to explain it. This seems, at least, a quite plausible scenario, not in contradiction with the various quotes from Wiki and other sources which have appeared here. I'm not very sure about the role of slavery in organizing the 99% of the South - but it is plausible that in a slave-holding country not only the big plantage owner with a lot of slaves supported slavery, but also small farmers with only a few of them, and even non-slave-holders which simply considered it as important for the society as a whole. Obviously the politicians of the South have had a different opinion about what this means. And I think they have been right about this - the political power was different at that time, not the actual oligarchat, where it is impossible to distinguish the different puppets of the oligarchs in their relevant political positions. And his support in the South was so astonishing that he was, AFAIU, not even on the ballot in the South. Nice, but in this case one would have moved the government to another place.
