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From: Vince <>
Subject: Re: Abraham Lincoln waged The War Between The States to SAVE THEUNION and not to free the slaves!
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2008 09:00:35 -0400
References: <lbnxj.804$9l1.5758@eagle.america.net><d401df4a-6781-496d-9246-4863d60dafed@e60g2000hsh.googlegroups.com><055d990a-98bc-4972-988a-ca3bd28fecb9@d21g2000prf.googlegroups.com><7fecbfd0-a942-4da8-a88d-916436da960d@e31g2000hse.googlegroups.com><8c587d8c-ad67-446e-ae9c-af47d53a423f@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com><8306274f-4d56-42d0-8c49-b6d0d311423d@b1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com><666e8921-ce35-4564-8130-fdcf2b39303a@d4g2000prg.googlegroups.com><d39bdb6f-00c3-42eb-92c4-36e9079d634a@q78g2000hsh.googlegroups.com><f435dc6e-71f3-4e40-a302-04304febc55c@s50g2000hsb.googlegroups.com><Ldadne-Hj456P0PanZ2dnUVZ_hWdnZ2d@comcast.com><54dc683f-4f89-432f-a620-974a7471e03e@v3g2000hsc.googlegroups.com><Wf2dnUw5v7-KMEPanZ2dnUVZ_gmdnZ2d@comcast.com><435c5d09-d52f-4994-86e8-96808a29b5d0@13g2000hsb.googlegroups.com><ja-dnZQdJqiJS0PanZ2dnUVZ_hOdnZ2d@comcast.com><ebc29e1a-0002-4888-99b2-6b84076f80e4@n77g2000hse.googlegroups.com>
In-Reply-To: <ebc29e1a-0002-4888-99b2-6b84076f80e4@n77g2000hse.googlegroups.com>


wrote:
> On Mar 17, 4:35 pm, Vince <> wrote:

The way you cut and pasted it makes it appear as if I posted what
followed. I did not



>
> Causes of the Civil War
>
> http://ngeorgia.com/history/why.html
>
> by Randy Golden
> exclusively for About North Georgia
>
> ...and they [Yankees] are marked ... with such a perversity of
> character, as to constitute, from that circumstance, the natural
> division of our parties
> Thomas Jefferson
> Some say simplistically that the Civil War was fought over slavery.
> Unfortunately, there is no "simple" reason. The causes of the war were
> a complex series of events, including slavery, that began long before
> the first shot was fired. Competing nationalisms, political turmoil,
> the definition of freedom, the preservation of the Union, the fate of
> slavery and the structure of our society and economy could all be
> listed as significant contributing factors in America's bloodiest
> conflict.
>
> Complaints of Georgians
>
> Many of the problems Georgians saw more than one hundred fifty years
> ago are being reiterated today. The "oppressive" federal government.
> High taxes(tariffs before the war). A growing government unwilling to
> listen to law abiding citizens. Sound familiar? They were complaints
> levied from 1816 on in Georgia.
>
> Constitutional Questions
>
> People argued about the meaning of the Constitution since its infancy.
> From a legal standpoint, the document defines the relationship between
> the people of the United States and the federal government, detailing
> the powers and responsibilities of each. In 1828 Vice-president John
> C. Calhoun said if a state felt a federal law extended beyond the
> Constitutional rights of the government that state had the right to
> ignore(or "nullify") the law. This concept dated back the Articles of
> Confederation. President Andrew Jackson felt the federal government
> was the highest authority(Article VI, Section 2) and the states had to
> abide by its law.
>
> Tariffs and the Nullification Crisis
>
> As industry in the North expanded it looked towards southern markets,
> rich with cash from the lucrative agricultural business, to buy the
> North's manufactured goods. However, it was often cheaper for the
> South to purchase the goods abroad. In order to "protect" the northern
> industries Jackson slapped a tariff on many of the imported goods that
> could be manufactured in the North. When South Carolina passed the
> Ordinance of Nullification in November 1832, refusing to collect the
> tariff and threatening to withdraw from the Union, Jackson ordered
> federal troops to Charleston. A secession crisis was averted when
> Congress revised the Tariff of Abominations in February 1833.
>
> The rhetoric changes
>
> However, the political climate changed during this "Nullification
> Crisis." Designations of States Rightist, Pro-Union, loose or strict
> constructionalist became more important than Whig or Democrat. In
> North Georgia when John Thomas, a local politician, was asked what to
> name a new county he said, "Name it Union, for none but Union-like men
> live here." Most of the northern tier of Georgia counties remained pro-
> Union until the outbreak of war almost 30 years later. From this point
> on factional politics would play an increasing part in the division of
> a country.
>
> Economic changes affect society
>
> The Panic of 1837 and the ensuing depression began to gnaw like a
> hungry animal on the flesh of the American system. The disparity
> between northern and southern economies was exacerbated. Before and
> after the depression the economy of the South prospered. Southern
> cotton sold abroad totaled 57% of all American exports before the war.
> The Panic of 1857 devastated the North and left the South virtually
> untouched. The clash of a wealthy, agricultural South and a poorer,
> industrial North was intensified by abolitionists who were not above
> using class struggle to further their cause.
>
> The breakdown of the political system
>
> The ugliness of the political process quickly began to show as parties
> turned upon themselves and politics on a national level were more like
> local Georgia politics. Feuds and fights in political arenas were
> common. From 1837 until 1861 eight men became president, but no man
> served more than a single term in office. One sitting president was
> not renominated by his own party and another withdrew his name after
> being nominated. New political parties were created with names like
> Constitutional Union, American, Free-Soilers and Republican. In
> Georgia, Democrats were strong, but factional fighting broke the party
> along pro-Union and States Rights lines.
>
> With the disintegration of the Whig party in the early 1850's the
> political turmoil increased. Howell Cobb, former Speaker of the House,
> molded pro-Union Democrats, mostly from North Georgia, with former
> Whigs to grab the governorship in 1851. His attempts to help slaves
> fell on the deaf ears of our state legislature. Although Georgia began
> to prosper during his first year the coalition fell apart as the
> Democrats reunited. The increasing power of the West and self-serving
> politicians like Stephen A. Douglas churned the political environment
> as the North and South battled for philosophic control.
>
> By the time Buchanan was elected(1856) the country was divided on many
> issues, including slavery. Former Governor Cobb spoke in the North as
> a moderate Southerner for Buchanan and served on his cabinet. Over the
> next 4 years Cobb changed from pro-Union to secessionist. A similar
> process occurred across much of Georgia. In 1860 the state was equally
> divided between secessionist and pro-Union.
>
> A concise history of slavery
>
> At Jamestown, Va. in 1611 a group of Scottish women and children were
> sold as slaves. 7 years later in Jamestown the first Africans were
> sold in slavery. From 1611 until 1865 people from virtually every
> society on earth were sold into slavery in North America. Citizens in
> each of the thirteen colonies enslaved people, but slavery was viewed
> as a southern institution after the early 1800's. Along the coastal
> areas of the South a majority of the slaves were black. In some inland
> areas whites and Native Americans outnumbered black slaves. Slavery is
> still legal in the United States as a criminal punishment, but is not
> practiced.
>
> In 1789 Georgians, as did much of the rest of the country, saw slavery
> as a dying institution. Eli Whitney's stolen modification of the
> cotton gin(1793) created a greater demand for slaves, so rather than
> "wither on the vine" the institution prospered. The Northwest
> Ordinance, adopted in 1787 banned the practice in the Northwest
> Territories. In 1798 Georgia forbid further importation of slaves and
> the Constitution allowed Congress to outlaw importation of slaves in
> 1808, which they did. Over the next 40 years lesser skirmishes were
> fought over slavery including the Compromise of 1820. In North Georgia
> slavery was not widespread and a majority of the slaves were of Native
> American, Scottish or Irish descent.
>
> Slaves often spoke of "our cotton" or "our cattle". The only item they
> would concede was the master's carriage. Trusted slaves were permitted
> to go to town unescorted. Others suffered horribly. Conditions in
> northern factories were as bad or worse than those for a majority of
> the slaves, but it would be 40 years after the war when they were
> properly addressed.
>
> Beginning in the late 1840's the conflict over slavery began to boil
> over. The Compromise of 1850 contributed heavily to the split in
> Georgia's Democratic Party. On a national scale David Wilmot, Lloyd
> Garrison, and Harriet Beecher Stowe enflamed the abolitionists. James
> G. Birney and Theodore Weld were more effective against slavery. The
> Dred Scot decision, Kansas-Nebraska Act, and harsher Fugitive Slave
> Laws gave the South some redress.
>
> The new Republican Party became a home to the alienated abolitionists.
> Although they totaled less than 3% of the population at large, they
> formulated the Republican platform to include the abolition of slavery
> as a plank. The party then nominated Abraham Lincoln for president.
> Few gave him any chance of success, but 3 other candidates split the
> popular vote and Lincoln won. Convinced that Lincoln would ruin the
> South economically, possibly by freeing the slaves, the heartland of
> the South withdrew from the Union. Shortly thereafter the upper south
> joined them. The attack on Fort Sumter launched America's bloodiest
> conflict.
>
> So what caused the war?
>
> The United States had been moving towards a fractured, divisive
> society for a number of years. Cultural and economic differences
> served to widen the rift. Battles among North, South, and West grew
> more heated, especially after 1850. Politicians and the judiciary sent
> conflicting signals trying to appease each of the groups involved, yet
> all remained dissatisfied. Georgians saw a federal government
> controlled by Northern industrialists who were unresponsive to the
> problems of their state. Tariffs paid by Georgians bought improvements
> in northern and western states. Now the federal government, they
> thought, was going to take away personal property without
> compensation, a clear violation of their Fourth Amendment rights.
>
> The South was wrong to assume Lincoln intended to free the slaves. He
> had never advocated action to abolish slavery nor did he speak out
> against the Illinois rules prohibiting blacks from testifying against
> whites. The true abolition candidate, Gerrit Smith of New York drew
> few votes. In his inaugural address Lincoln made it clear he would not
> interfere with slavery where it existed. Even though he made this
> speech after the South seceded he left the door open for their return.
>
> During the war
>
> Southerners abolished the African slave trade in the Confederate
> Constitution. In the North "Preserve the Union" was the battlecry and
> Lincoln quoted "...a house divided shall not stand..." from the Bible.
> In fact the Emancipation Proclamation(1862), a foreign affair ploy,
> cost Republicans control of the legislature that November. A year
> later Lincoln restated why the war was fought when he said, dedicating
> a cemetery at Gettysburg "..for those who here gave their lives that
> this nation might live." During the Draft Riots in New York City 88
> blacks were lynched.
>
> After the war
>
> Phil Sheridan, George Armstrong Custer and others adapted very quickly
> from killing rebels to the genocide of Native Americans. The South was
> "reconstructed" for the next 87 years. Southerners formed
> "brotherhoods" that featured white robes, lynchings and unanimous
> support for Democratic candidates in the South and West. Confederate
> General John B. Gordon, reputed leader of this Ku Klux Klan, was
> elected governor of Georgia. Blacks struggled for nearly one hundred
> years to gain legal and economic equality.
>
> aaron

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