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How are even engaged in these discussions if you didn't know that? The Hartford Convention is basic American history.

Even if this BS is accepted at face value, so what? You've already acknowledged that a people should be free to break away from a gov't that no longer represents them. The U.S. Supreme Court had ruled slavery legal less than a decade prior. Nowhere in the Constitution of the United States does it prevent a state or states from seceding. Nowhere in the Constitution does it grant the POTUS the authority to do what Lincoln did against the South.

Thus, you have a free people declaring independence from a gov't that no longer represents them and giving their legal, Constitutional rationale for the same. Conversely, you have a federal government listing its unconstitutional, illegal rationale for preventing said independence; and not once listing slavery as the reason behind the invasion.

Therefore, you're continually supporting an illegal, unconstitutional subjugation of an otherwise Constitutionally permitted secession based upon a revisionist agenda and rationale. Basically, you're contradicting that which you say a free people can and should be able to do because you "feel" that one of their rationales for such action is immoral.

That's a damned slippery, and damned dangerous slope you've put yourself on. Be prepared to slide down it to your own demise whenever the gov't decides that it "feels" some of your freedoms are immoral.

sherman did it to civilians, stole their livelihood or leveled it, burned it, pillaged families, old people, etc... was fort pillow not strictly a military engagement? Severe yes, but NBF didnt go out and kill yankee families

THIS. Very good, sir. States' Rights and freedom. Was slavery a component? I think so and an important one too, but frankly I believe it was also a culture war of sorts against the Southern way of life of less government control and freedom.
Lincoln was a hypocrite, but sadly as many of you have posted, what they teach in our schools is written by the victors and if you ask the majority of ALL Americans, they all parrot "slavery" as the root cause of the war, which is of course patently false. It was and remains a national tragedy, but it speaks volumes as to the righteousness of the Southern cause that even after 150 years, their real causes have not been forgotten and my hope is that it never will.

And for what is worth, my dad (still around at 93 and a Civil War expert in his own right) always instilled in me the Southern cause was a just and honorable one, whilst acknowledging slavery was equally wrong, and had Lincoln's actions (fueled also by the Money in the North) been more tempered, slavery would have eventually been abolished without the need for that war. Curdog, like your post as well sir.
Edited to add: I have learned a lot here as well.

Damn, another misstep on your part....




Smithwick requires no defense from me, disappointing though and very telling that you would actually describe the man as "traitorous scum", about like your dismissal of all those fine Union men as "useful idiots".



Smithwick left because he was sure he would be murdered simply for being pro-Union.

As events turned out he was exactly right, several of his friends WERE murdered, lingering anger over the same being his own stated reason why he never returned to Texas.



Far from it, I have been insisting all along their very literacy meant they MUST have known the causes they were fighting for also included front and center a Constitution based upon the perpetuation of slavery.



This is all very dramatic.

OK, its a given that the Union side contained a larger proportion of recent immigrants....

...but, were there not also "tens of thousands" of Union men, children and grandchildren of Rev War vets who, like Smithwick, took the Union side?

Of course these would be the guys you have dismissed as "dupes" and "useful idiots"....

..and now "traitorous scum"....

Birdwatcher

i grew up being taught lincoln freed the slaves and was under the impression he loved black people LOL

NO SO FAST BW, trying to pawn it off on Grant's wife...

Julia Dent Grant came from a slave-owning family and was an apologist for slavery throughout her life and the Civil War. The Grants owned slaves that came from Julia's father and Grant himself was responsible for supervising them. These slaves were not freed until 1865 when Missouri officially abolished slavery.

Grant actually owned one slave himself as well:
Grant himself owned a slave named William Jones, acquired from his father-in-law. At a time when he could have desperately used the money from the sale of Jones, Grant signed a document that gave him his freedom.
Grant freed this slave in 1859.

Robert E. Lee came from a slave-owning family, but upon his father-in-law's death, all those slaves were freed (this was 1862 before the Emancipation Proclamation). In a letter to President Pierce, Lee wrote that "There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil."

So what is comes down to is the Grant family owned slaves longer than the Lee as the slaves in question were from Julia's family, not Grant's personal slaves. That being said, of course, in that day and age, that meant Grant was in control of them. It is interesting to see that both of these men - the two opposing Civil War generals - were slave owners at one point or another in their lives.


I have learned alot from all sides here and in doing more research....
battle flag will fly on my property and my kids will know it isnt racist

Thank you for this info.

I had not known that Grant had previously freed his own slave despite a strong economic incentive to sell the man. I suspect that, as seemingly often happened among slave-holding families, Grant had developed a strong personal regard for the man, almost equivalent to family.

As for the rest about Julia's slaves.... Egad man! Have you never been married?....

Birdwatcher

My takeaway from it is Secession didn't happen, ergo undermining your position that secession would have been inevitable even without slavery.

Will you deny that the Confederate Constitution was profoundly different from the original?

A man who abandons his friends and neighbors in time of need, well, there isn't really too much that can be said about him nicely.

And my position is that it almost happened without slavery as an issue supporting my position that it most certainly would have happened at some point without slavery.

Yes, the Confederate Constitution was BETTER than our Constitution and attempted to rectify some of the weaknesses of the original that had become apparent by 1861.

But regardless of what it was or wasn't, it was the lawful, democratic expression of a free people who desired nothing more than to live under a government of their choosing.

KEEP EM FLYIN...

I'm late to the party and probably way under gunned to wade into this, but what the Hell.

It would seem to me that all the efforts made to show slavery as a primary cause for the secession of the CSA should be moot due to the fact that at the time of secession, slavery was still legal and was in fact, still in practice in various parts of the world.

I'm not as knowledgeable as many here on this thread about the full reasoning behind the secession of the CSA. Being born in the North, I'm not steeped in the history like many of of my Southern brothers likely are/were. I simply learned what was fed to me during my education, which was thankfully started long enough ago to have escaped the last 3 decades of revisionism and still contain some truths. With an open mind and a pair of willing ears, I've added a bit more knowledge over time.

Again, slavery was legal at the time. Was it immoral? Yes, but since it was legal, I have no problem with it being included in the list of freedoms that the South was trying to preserve.

As to the issue of States' Rights, what we're seeing happen in our Federal courts is a result of the loss of States' Rights and being ruled by a more local government.


edit to add-

After re-reading my post, I realize that as usual, I failed to make my point, which is-

When slavery is pointed to as one of the reasons behind the South's secession, it's meant to be looked at as a smear. Something ugly to make the South appear to be on the wrong side of things. My take is that since it was legal at the time and in fact, common throughout the world, it's moot point and simply an attempt at smearing the South by looking at it with modern emotions that are often confused with reason.

and further the emancipation in 1863 didnt even end slavery in all the states...just the rebellious ones

awesome flag

Sako: that flag place is SOLD OUT! I wanted a First National to fly this weekend!

check your PM

OK!

WOW! He nailed it..........66yrs ago.