Historical Update...circa 1987.

[donquixote99]

Sumner's tax was a wartime proposal, and never enacted. No other tax on slavery had existed, unless you go back in the War of 1812 period. So a tax on slavery couldn't have caused the Civil War.

The main cause of the Civil War was the South came to hate and fear the North, and the North (to a lesser degree, but enough) hated the South. The bottom psychological problem was the South's hatred and fear of the slaves. They knew of the case of Haiti, where the white French settlers had been slaughtered by the slaves. They knew of Nat Turner's rebellion, which accomplished the same thing here, on a very small scale, before it was crushed. For the South, Nat Turner had impact comparable to the 9/11 terrorist attack, confirming fears and extinguishing all popular sympathy for the idea of freeing slaves. Then came the rise of the Northern Abolitionist Movement, with it's bitter moral accusations being seen, in the light of Nat Turner, as maddening insults, and indeed, as a call for their destruction. This view was ultimately, explicitly confirmed by John Brown. After that, there could be no thought of accepting a Republican president. Lincoln's moderation was seen as a sham; secession was seen as a refuge of safety, a wonderful relief form a deadly threat, and a final and satisfying rebuke to a deadly foe. One might capture the feeling of the thing by imagining one's feeling on divorcing an abusive and hated spouse.

The North was in no mood by that time to put up with such a rebuke. Lincoln, had he known of the level of bloodshed that would have resulted, might have tried to head off war. But in the event, he was assured of quick victory, and had no basis to doubt it. Failure to fight, on the other hand, would have left him politically scorned and ruined. And so the war came.

[BlueStreak]

Right. Sumners tax was never enacted and neither were the other proposals. But, it was all part of a larger picture.

"The bottom psychological problem was the South's hatred and fear of the slaves."

Exactly. They hated and feared the idea of large numbers of freed blacks among them and the retribution that might come with it. (But hasn't.)

You might be able to say that some still do.

To assert that the war had nothing to do with slavery is absurd on it's face.

Dave

[merrylander]

Originally Posted by BlueStreak

Right. Sumners tax was never enacted and neither were the other proposals. But, it was all part of a larger picture.

"The bottom psychological problem was the South's hatred and fear of the slaves."

Exactly. They hated and feared the idea of large numbers of freed blacks among them and the retribution that might come with it. (But hasn't.)

You might be able to say that some still do.

To assert that the war had nothing to do with slavery is absurd on it's face.

Dave

It has been suggested that Madison offered the 2nd Amendment solely for the protection of the slave owners. At least one ship full of slaves had seen a slave revolt and more were expected.

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by merrylander

It has been suggested that Madison offered the 2nd Amendment solely for the protection of the slave owners. At least one ship full of slaves had seen a slave revolt and more were expected.

I've heard that and see the logic. Don't know how accurate it is, but it wouldn't surprise me at all to find it true.

Dave

[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by merrylander

It has been suggested that Madison offered the 2nd Amendment solely for the protection of the slave owners. At least one ship full of slaves had seen a slave revolt and more were expected.

The famous ship revolt was that on the Amistad, which led after years of litigation to the participants being freed by the Supreme Court. But that revolt occured in 1839, decades after the drafting of the Bill of Rights.

I've read this presentation of the case that the 2nd was a 'slaver amendment' on truth-out.org and find it lacking. It's of course true that the people in the South feared rebellious slaves, and used militia to patrol against them. It's even true that this concern, along with others, was mentioned by some in connection with the right to bear arms. One actual instance of this is quoted in the article. The article goes further than its evidence, however. It suggests that other speakers shared this particualr concern, when it does not appear in their words. And it says that pressure on this point led to Madison's drafting of the 2ns Amendemnt, without any direct evidence of such pressure, in Madison's or anyone else's words.

I don't see that a particular danger apprehended by Southerners eclipses the general concern, attested by numerous speakers, of all regions, that the people, as a check on the standing army, should have a right to arms independent of the control of the central government. I'm forced to conclude that this story is just propaganda, attempting to smear the 2nd Amendment with the odium of slavery.

[nailer]

To DQ's excellent analysis I'll add that the Supreme Court's decision reflected the Nation's view on slavery's morality.

[piece-itpete]

This is an excellent discussion.

Originally Posted by Ike Bana

..... Jefferson saw black people as less than human. Had he not, he would not have had ownership. Had he not, he would have made sure that his Constitution did not allow for slavery to remain in place in the new union. If his fellow founders objected to that, he would have been free to withdraw his collaboration and support and simply let the other slave owning founders write the Constitution that did not address the issue of slavery, without him. I don't see the "differences" as gigantic at all. Minimal...pretty much.

I thought politics was the art of the possible? They created a system that did succeed in freeing all here. The south would've had a slave empire.

And they did another thing that shows character - they agreed to a system that made absolutely sure they would eventually lose power. These were an exceptional group of men.

Originally Posted by Ike Bana

Generally the people of the northern states.had little concern for the slaves in the south. Certainly not enough to fight and possibly die for any slaves. Lincoln could have easily lost whatever popular support he had for maintaining the Union had he made the primary goal abolition and not Union. I believe at a particularly difficult time, he commented to the effect that should he make the issue freeing the slaves, half the Union army would desert, and a half dozen more states would secede. For most of the war he walked this tightrope.

I caught an excellent little thing in one of the biographies of him I've read, that he wasn't particularly worried about losing the second election because he knew the Midwesterners would have never allowed a foreign county to control the mouth of the Mississippi.

Pete

[nailer]

IIRC Lincoln' primary concern was how Union soldiers would vote. To his pleasant suprise they overwhelmingly voted for him.

[BlueStreak]

So, you're telling me that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery?

That's ridiculous.

See that behind all the trees you've sighted?

It's a forest.

A forest called; "Slavery".

Dave

[BlueStreak]

Stop trying to put lipstick on the pig. No matter how much you try to pretty it up, it will always be a pig.

Dave