Jefferson vs Lincoln

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
321

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

I really think if people view this issue centered firmly on slavery, whether either side in the 1860’s did so or not, it takes on a different much less academic light.

Slavery erased whatever other possibly legitimate claims to self determination the south may have wielded. On that level Lincoln’s motives or whether he loved black people is irrelevant. In preserving the union he also did away with a monstrous institutionalized evil that may have eventually led to worse things than even the civil war.

Don’t those black slaves count? Are we to grieve over the death of 600,000 largely white people, but fancy it tolerable that millions of black people were forced into lives arguably worse than death? Bred like cattle, children wrenched from their mothers arms bought and sold at auction as beasts of burden? Absolutely no rights, even to life, never mind liberty or the pursuit of happiness? There is no way to escape the fact that supporting the south is supporting that even if passively.

That is an emotional argument with constitutional teeth.[/quote]

I don’t disagree with any of this. No one here can outshout me in denouncing the evils of slavery.

However, I’ll ask you the same question as I asked TB. What would’ve been YOUR acceptable/unacceptable threshold of death and suffering?
[/quote]

I don’t think I know exactly how to answer that question. Do we quantify something like this numerically? By level of barbarism? Both? On moral grounds? Was slavery evil enough to eliminate any acceptability threshold altogether so that no price could’ve been too high? I’m not sure.

What I do know is that slavery was an intolerable blight on the character of this nation that if not defeated then may have never been and while a bloody civil war was a terrible thing, it was preferable to the alternative

322

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

What I do know is that slavery was an intolerable blight on the character of this nation that if not defeated then may have never been and while a bloody civil war was a terrible thing, it was preferable to the alternative
[/quote]

Playing devils advocate here but do you think slavery would have ended as technological advancements were made? A human, as cheap as they may have been to own, can only perform a certain amount of work. At some point, it becomes more economically feasible to purchase the machine that allows the harvest to be collected in minimal time.

However, I’m not sure how long that whole process would have taken.

You can pretty much count on the fact that once slaves were freed, they would have still been reduced to second (or third) class citizens. And who knows how long Jim Crow Laws, or the like would have enforced in the South.

323

[quote]Dustin wrote:

Well, I lean towards Tiribulus’s view that Lincoln probably wasn’t loosing sleep at night because blacks were enslaved. I suppose that is why I separate the issue of slavery and the war itself. Perhaps I shouldn’t separate them.[/quote]

That is a key approach, if you ask me. This idea that somehow the Slave Power represented the “champions of liberty” in this entire endeavor baffles me, and so I don’t see how the libertarians/anarchists can view the war and slavery as so “separate”. There is no “separate” issue.

Did you read John S.'s arguments in that thread about the Commerce Clause? There were beyond idiotic - as in, they were so divorced from history and reasoning that they didn’t deserve anything but dismissal. That isn’t condescension. Bad ideas and sloppy reasoning deserve to be told they are bad and sloppy.

Well, we did exchange BFF necklaces recently.

[quote]This is the last I will comment about your posting “style”, but you have verbally torn people to shreds over the years posting here, simply because you disagreed with them. And that isn’t even subject to debate.

But, the internet is serious business, so, oh well.[/quote]

No, internet debating is a fun pasttime, assuming you get people who are fun to debate with. But no, I think you are wrong about me “tearing people to shreds” - if I do it, I don’t do it just because people “disagree” with me. Usually there is a different catalyst.

Sure, huge difference between the two.

Apology accepted.

325

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

[quote]Headhunter wrote:

[quote]Jack_Dempsey wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Food for thought: 95% of the southern white population in 1860 owned no slaves.[/quote]

What is your source?

The 1860 census says 31 percent of families in the South owned slaves. Which means that about a third of the families of the South were, in Lincoln’s words, “wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces.” It is likely that most of those families consisted of at least two adults. If so, that would put the percentage of slave-owning adults at around 16 percent.

[/quote]

What’s wrong with that? All morality is relative anyway and who are you or me to judge others? Its perfectly okay to firebomb the cities of those who don’t agree with your position, so I’m a Unionist. All morality is relative.

Since morality is relative, its okay to surprise others when they wanted to leave the Union. “You can’t do that, its ILLEGAL!” What was meant, of course, is that we will club you into submission if you just try and leave.

Power is everything. ‘Right’ and ‘wrong’ are just made up words. Right?

[/quote]
I usually see you as more intelligent and reasoned than most give you credit for here, because, I believe, I take the time to decipher your sometimes intentionally cryptic method of communication.

This, however is an utterly boneheaded analysis. It is exactly in light of the absolute and in my view Divine nature of the substantive equality of ALL men that rendered the abolition of slavery paramount over all other concerns in the civil war era.

This country was a living breathing caricature of her own founding so long as slavery was allowed to persist within her borders.

It was further precisely the relative application of principle depending on which men we were talking about that allowed slavery to exist here in the first place. How can you not see that?

Before you jump on me I have already said that to me, the question of secession for other reasons, under different circumstances is a different question altogether. At bottom I’m much less concerned with the how or why than I am with THAT slavery was abolished. The United States of America could not allow that state of affairs to continue.

EDIT: Oh yeah, do we really want to talk about might making right here when men, women and children were driven under the lash into dehumanizing servile bondage? [/quote]

Yeah, I am kind of cryptic sometimes. Most perceive that as insanity, but that’s fine.

My point is that the Union couldn’t win the dispute with the South using reason. They (the Southerners) believed that they were perfectly correct morally as did the Northerners. Morality is relative.

So, morality is meaningless here and indeed might makes right.

Unless a universal standard (which used to be the will of God) can be found which will be adhered to by all parties concerned, then morality is meaningless and power is everything.

326

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[/quote]There is a school of thought “out there” that makes a case that slavery was economically crumbling, goaded along, of course, by the moral implications. I read about this theory awhile back and don’t remember the source.

In the 1860 South, the common white man (90 - 95% of the white population) was not especially enamored with slavery and surely had little in common with the rich, plantation owners. It can easily be argued that slavery skewed the opportunities for the white southern working man by providing a cheap, “impossible to compete with” labor force.

According to the theory, technology and all the progress of the Industrial Revolution would’ve crushed slavery in short order. Strong abolitionist movements in Europe, especially Britain (the USA’s and most likely an established CSA’s primary trading partner), might very well have influenced their governments to impose trading practices on the CSA that would’ve eventually crippled it and forced the dissolution of slavery. The Union surely would’ve punished the CSA with strong trade barriers.

Bottom line, as I’ve alluded to frequently, is I do NOT believe it was a strict “either/or” situation facing Lincoln and the Congress in 1861. There WERE alternatives. Like several of us have mentioned it was a complicated situation. A complicated situation cannot necessarily be distilled down to a simplistic “either/or” crescendo of cymbal bashing.

Not a perfect analogy but the current health care political controversy has the same type of rabid “WE GOTTA DO SOMETHING” drumbeat echoing all over the land; the same “either/or” sense of pseudo desperation.

And yes, we are all arguing/discussing this with the benefit of hindsight and even then there are no clear cut equations that enable us to solve the problem. ANYONE who wades into this discussion and plants their flagpole of supremacy in the terra firma, setting themselves up as the Emperor of All That is Right and True and claiming inerrant objectivity, is…full of Mason-Dixon hog farm shit. [/quote]

One issue cutting against this is that slavery was not merely an economic issue for the Slave Power - it was a moral one, even outside the context of economic efficiency.

If there was a tehcnological advancement that made slave labor less economical, there is little reason to think that that would suddenly spur the leap to addressing the moral question - i.e., the Slave Power wouldn’t suddenly change their moral view of blacks simply because a machine made cotton picking more efficient, nor would they suddenly - because of technology - support the idea that blacks should now vote, hold property, and otherwise integrate with society.

Had the Slave Power merely continued the idea of the Founding Fathers’ view of slavery - it was an awful thing, but a necessity, and one that would hopefully find its way to obsolescence - I think the “technology” argument works. But since Calhoun, Stephens, etc. had a different view - society had to be based on the race-class structure - no amount of technology would have moved them off of it.

330

[quote]pushharder wrote:

We can all agree it was a ghastly war where “old school” military tactics in regards to personnel merged with a giant leap forward in technology to produce unspeakable horrors that had not yet been matched in human history.[/quote]

What was the “leap forward” in technology that produced “unspeakable horrors” in the Civil War?

331

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

[quote]Dustin wrote:

Well, I lean towards Tiribulus’s view that Lincoln probably wasn’t loosing sleep at night because blacks were enslaved. I suppose that is why I separate the issue of slavery and the war itself. Perhaps I shouldn’t separate them.[/quote]

That is a key approach, if you ask me. This idea that somehow the Slave Power represented the “champions of liberty” in this entire endeavor baffles me, and so I don’t see how the libertarians/anarchists can view the war and slavery as so “separate”. There is no “separate” issue.
[/quote]

Champions of liberty they were not, but I would take it a step further and apply that to the Union (federal government) as well.

332

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

We can all agree it was a ghastly war where “old school” military tactics in regards to personnel merged with a giant leap forward in technology to produce unspeakable horrors that had not yet been matched in human history.[/quote]

What was the “leap forward” in technology that produced “unspeakable horrors” in the Civil War?
[/quote]

Rifling!?!?!

And big cannons that shoot big balls.

I said balls!

334

[quote]pushharder wrote:
thunderbolt23 wrote:
pushharder wrote:

We can all agree it was a ghastly war where “old school” military tactics in regards to personnel merged with a giant leap forward in technology to produce unspeakable horrors that had not yet been matched in human history.[/quote]

Although, from what I know, their use was frowned upon, exploding bullets sound pretty unsweet.

335

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
<<< One issue cutting against this is that slavery was not merely an economic issue for the Slave Power - it was a moral one, even outside the context of economic efficiency. >>>[/quote]

As the many atrocities committed during the post war “reconstruction” attest.

I knew I should have been happy as a spectator in this thread

I’ll have to get back to this later

337

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Dustin wrote:

Because you agree with him on virtually everything? He’s your forum “buddy”. [/quote]

Actually, I have contended some other issues with him but I don’t remember what they were.

I also can’t recall what his stance is on the purported malignancy of Bible colleges.
[/quote]

He did say you two exchanged BFF necklaces.

If that doesn’t say friendship, I don’t know what does.

338

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
<<< Unless a universal standard (which used to be the will of God) can be found which will be adhered to by all parties concerned, then morality is meaningless and power is everything.
[/quote]
I’m not sure where you’re saying you stand here, but there has not ever been a post on this site (or anywhere else) I could possibly agree with more than the above. It was exactly that assumption that put this nation in motion. That is evinced almost everywhere in even the non religious founders. I don’t wanna steer this thread offtrack though.

340

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

Rephrase that for me, TB. I’m not quite sure what you’re asking.[/quote]

Sure. An enormous, costly war with a death toll of 600,000 wasn’t justified in response to secession, even if the South had no right to leave the Union.

So, what action - if any - would have been justified in response to the Southern states’ unjustified leaving of the Union?
[/quote]

My first suggestion would be Talk. Diplomacy. …[/quote]

OK. Talk. With whom? About what? On what authority?

As it turns out, when Lincoln arrived in Washington in February 1861, a convention was meeting in Richmond to decide on Virginia’s succession. A week before his inauguration, Lincoln met with two Virginia delegates to the Washington “Peace Convention,” offering to withdraw troops from Ft Sumter if the RIchmond convention would adjourn without voting to secede. (There are no minutes of this secret meeting. It is unclear whether this was also part of a strategy to abandon Sumter and reinforce Ft. Pickering.) The offer was repeated several weeks later, after the inauguration. Each time, he was rebuffed; the delegates had no authority to negotiate.

In those days before Ft Sumter, there was no legal authority in the seceding states which could negotiate with authority; nor could any agreements be enforced by the Southern authorities. It was not a legal matter alone by which Lincoln considered their “governments” rebellious; it was also a practical matter.

If talk and diplomacy could be successful, what human cost would have been spared if the secession were recognized, and war averted? What if…? To that hypothetical, I would answer with one of my own. Since the territories were under Federal, and not state sovereignty, would a negotiated settlement have to include a division of territory and the introduction of legalized slavery, without the consent of the inhabitants? Would Bloody Kansas be relived in every western territory and in California, without end? Could a war between the territories not blow-back to the Union and the Confederacy?

In short, Lincoln did make a good-faith effort to cool the flame. In the spring of 1861, there was no authority in the South capable of diplomacy which could then enforce an agreement. And an agreement would not necessarily lead to a lasting peace.