Helloo Jim, my favorite monomaniac! Luckily, our monomania overlap!
I am impressed with the stretches of logic to get to our favorite subject! "The individual no longer has value" becomes the violation of individual rights of Southern slaves. Wow! The problem is, because African slave importation in the U.S.ended around 1814, the individual slave had a lot of value. A slave was probably the single most valuable piece of living property someone could own. As such, they were generally treated reasonably well. It varied from state to state, but, if the work was hazardous, an Irishman was hired to do it instead, because negroes were valuable.
Was Southern slavery an evil? I believe it was. I have read nothing that DiLorenzo has written that indicates to me he believes otherwise. Was it a violation of individual rights? I believe it. You believe it. DiLorenzo believes it. Lincoln believed it. He said in a speech in the 1850's that slavery violated the principle of government by consent outlined in the Declaration of Independence.
Now, ending the evil. That is the question. You state DiLorenzo's writings are critical of the means Lincoln chose to use to end slavery. In this you are correct. Killing 750,000 people in order to subject 4 million people and their descendants to another century and a half of legal and social discrimination, oppression, imprisonment was not the wisest move on his part.
Yet, you believe "Lincoln had no choice but to destroy the southern states, who had initiated the violence" in order to end slavery.
Really? He had no choice?
The ship, STAR OF THE WEST was sent by President Buchanan in January of 1861 to resupply Fort Sumter. This was a couple of weeks after South Carolina declared secession. South Carolina fired on the ship. The ship retreated. Buchanan didn't declare war. It appears he had a choice. Lincoln had a choice. South Carolina, which had seceded, asked to negotiate with Lincoln to take possession of the fort. Lincoln could have handed it to South Carolina without a shot fired. He became president in March. On March 11, 1861, Lincoln sent troops to Fort Pickens in Florida, which had seceded the preceding January. This was the initiation of violence. Even so, war was not Lincoln's choice. The power to declare war belongs to the Congress, not the President.
But at that point, only seven of the fifteen slave states had seceded. If it was all about slavery, why had the other eight not left the Union? Assuming slavery was the reason President Lincoln went to war, despite the fact he repeatedly said and wrote it was not, was that really the only way to have ended slavery in the South? Jim, you say war was the only means. Was it? Ezra Pound once said a slave is someone who waits for someone else to come and free him. With the Confederacy a separate country, the U.S. states were no longer bound by the Constitution and federal law to return fugitive slaves from Confederate states. Could not Lincoln have allowed the slave states to secede and then offered refuge to any slave that could cross into the U.S.? Would the slaves not have freed themselves without a war? In this way, the Declaration's principle of consent been fulfilled for both the slaves and the states.
You state that secession is only allowed when the rights of citizens are violated. However, that was, you believe, not the case when South Carolina seceded. Read the articles of secession. South Carolina lists the violation of Article IV of the Constitution as a reason for secession. She also lists unequal treatment with regards to the settling of the territories. After the attack at Harpers Ferry, VA, fugitives from justice involved in the murders there were not surrendered to VA for trial, but were, instead, given refuge but Nothern states. The Republican Party had shown by its actions that it believed murder was less an evil that slavery. I think murder constitutes a violation of citizens' rights. In any case, the States formed the Union, not the other way around. The States could therefore unmake it. A decision to secede is nobody's but the people of the state to make. You might not think secession is justified, but it is only the opinion of the people that counts. The Union was created to serve the states that created it. If it ceased to serve its purpose, in the opinion of the people of a state, it is free to leave, just as it had freely joined.
In arguing these points, nobody is rationalizing slavery. The right of a state to secede is an issue separate from the hoary institution of slavery. Slavery preceded the colonies. It preceded the republic. DiLorenzo does not rationalize slavery. Nor does he rationalize murder. I don't think owning a negro slave in 1860 is something to murder someone over. Surely another approach could be found. Don't you agree? Britain didn't go to war to end slavery. Brazil didn't either. I think the U.S. and Haiti were only ones that had to resort to it. If Lincoln wanted to end slavery in the worst way, he certainly accomplished that. The problem is, slavery was not the issue; Keeping the South in the Union in order to transfer its wealth to the North was the point. That being said, since slavery is long past, is it OK for states to leave the Union, now?
 Commented 4100 days ago |
