Cause of Civil War

Artemis has made some assertions in the daily quote thread.The first is a spurious quote from Robert E. Lee.

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"This war is not about slavery."

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He has shown no evidence this is a correct quote or anything to show Lee felt this way.Next he makes this claim. Now I would love to see his arguments and evidence for this. He seems pretty confident here.I know how this is going to go. He is going to demand evidence from me first. Well Artie, you made the assertions and demanded a thread so you can back them up. Artie, can you back up your statements? I know you can't on the Lee quote, but maybe on the others?

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Facts don\'t lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

As Arty probably will not attempt to support his assertions, lets look at some evidence already presented against them.Subbie and Dr A posted this info in the quote thread already. I hope they do not mind that I repost it here. Message 50
In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

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Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. - State of Mississippi in its Declaration of Causes of Secession The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew." - Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states. (Emphasis in original)- State of Texas in its Declaration of Causes of Secession Message 81

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The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence.

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Source
Lee to Mrs. Lee, Dec. 27, 1856; Lee MSS., Library of Congress.So here is some evidence to counter your assertions. Now are you ready to refute it?

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

You have done nothing to defend your point. You have presented no evidence to support your assertions.Nothing to support this. The Virginia declaration mentions slaveholders and slave holding states directly. I think maybe you have some cognitive dissonance there. How about some evidence for your assertions next time. This has nothing to do with the thread or your assertions. You made very clear assertions. Back them up. No one is saying this. This is a strawman you are attempting to build. Slavery was an integral part of the reasons for the war. Was it the sole reason? No. But the economic reasons for the war were driven by slavery. States rights is just a smoke screen to hide slavery as a primary cause. No one is stating this. Another straw man. The war from the union side was to preserve the union. The war from the confederate side was to dissolve the union.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

You really should try using references.The reason for the "invasion" is because MO was split between pro and anti slavery. In the 1850's there was a large influx of Germans into MO. They were staunchly anti-slavery. The 1850's was the scene of much violence in MO, caused by the pro and anti slave people. To say slavery has nothing to do with the civil war in Mo is to deny the history of the 1850's.

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By 1860 Missouri was a state in change. In the ten years before the war the original Southern settlers of the state discovered themselves sharing the land with a large contingent of German immigrants. These newcomers were staunchly antislavery. As the country lurched toward war in 1861, newly elected Governor Claiborne F. Jackson led the pro-slavery forces in Missouri. Leading the antislavery group were Congressman Francis P. Blair and General Nathaniel Lyon.

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http://www.mocivilwar.org/history/1861.htmlThe arsenal was a Federal arsenal. There was not an invasion. The federal troops were there to move the US arms out of MO to Illinois in order that they would not fall into the hands of secessionists. Not really true.

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On July 22, 1861, following Lyon's capture of the Missouri capital at Jefferson City, the Missouri Constitutional Convention reconvened and declared the Missouri governor's office to be vacant. On July 28, it appointed Hamilton Rowan Gamble as governor of the state and agreed to comply with Lincoln's demand for troops.

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In October 1861, the remnants of the elected state government that favored the South (including Jackson and Price) met in Neosho, and voted to formally secede from the Union. The measure gave them votes in the Confederate Congress, but otherwise was symbolic since they did not control any part of the state. The capital was to eventually move to Marshall, Texas. When Jackson died in office in 1862, his lieutenant governor, Thomas Caute Reynolds, succeeded him.

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Missouri in the American Civil War - WikipediaI am not sure why MO is high on your list. They never seceded and never were in open rebellion to the Union. Pro-Unionist were in control from nearly the beginning. Ax to grind much?When did I ever say I don't have opinions. All I want is for you to back you many assertions with facts and evidence. I have not attacked you. All I have done is question your assertions. I cannot attack your sources because as of yet you have none.OK to summarize.
The reason for the conflict in MO was because of pro and
anti slavery forces fighting for control of the government. This in turn lead to the US forces moving the arms from an arsenal in St Louis to Illinois.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

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Two members Claiborne Jackson, and William B. Napton, Sr., sought to undermine the power of Missouri's U.S. Senator Thomas Hart Benton. Benton was not anti-slavery, but he opposed its expansion into new territories. Jackson and Napton penned a series of resolutions, which essentially made the following points:

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1. Any attempt by Congress to regulate slavery is unconstitutional.

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2. The establishment of free territories is an insult to slave holding states.

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3. Only people residing in a territory at the time a state constitution was framed could vote to prohibit slavery. Future generations have no right to consider the issue of slavery.

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4. Missouri would cooperate with other slaveholding states for their mutual protection against northern fanaticism.

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The Jackson Resolutions, as these were known passed in both houses of the Missouri legislature by an overwhelming majority and signed by Governor Austin King on March 10, 1849. Within a few years, Benton was out of politics.

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http://www.friendsar.org/civilwar.htmlJackson was MO governor in 1861.

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Jackson assumed the governor's office on January 2, 1861, and despite a state convention that voted more than 3-1 in favor of Union, vowed to continue the policy of his predecessor Robert M. Stewart, whereby Missouri would be an "armed neutral," refusing to give arms or men to either side in the approaching Civil War, though Jackson personally favored joining the South, and surreptitiously provided both men and arms to the Confederate army.

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Claiborne Fox Jackson - WikipediaYou want to continue with MO or move on?

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

If you cannot debate in a civil manner I request you not post to this thread. This was meant to be a thread that would allow you to back your assertions. If you are going to be a abusive I will ask that this thread be closed.

I agree with your viewpoint.There are people like Artie that will claim Slavery had nothing to do with it. The reasons for this view should be looked into by psychologists. Even if you believe it was primarily a states rights issue, there has to be an acknowledgment that slavery was the catalyst for the states rights issues. To do anything else would be a display of extreme denial of facts and outright revisionism of the historical record. A few posters have shown that the states rights issue is disingenuous at best and a flat out lie at worst. The CSA Constitution did not make a marked change in the relationship between the states and the federal government.
I'd love to hear an argument of what those major changes were that alleviated the problems they had with the US with states rights. The only major one I can see is the right to own slaves. The ability to suspend habeus corpus is still there.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

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The causes of the war will be found at the foundation of our political fabric, in our complex organism, in the fundamental law, in the Constitution itself, in the conflicting constructions which it invited, and in the institution of slavery which it recognized and was intended to protect. If asked what was the real issue involved in our unparalleled conflict, the average American citizen will reply, "The negro"; and it is fair to say that had there been no slavery there would have been no war. But there would have been no slavery if the South's protests could have availed when it was first introduced; and now that it is gone, although its sudden and violent abolition entailed upon the South directly and incidentally a series of woes which no pen can describe, yet it is true that in no section would its reestablishment be more strongly and universally resisted. The South steadfastly maintains that responsibility for the presence of this political Pandora's box in this Western world cannot be laid at her door. When the Constitution was adopted and the Union formed, slavery existed in practically all the States; and it is claimed by the Southern people that its disappearance from the Northern and its development in the Southern States is due to climatic conditions and industrial exigencies rather than to the existence or absence of great moral ideas.
Slavery was undoubtedly the immediate fomenting cause of the woeful American conflict. It was the great political factor around which the passions of the sections had long been gathered--the tallest pine in the political forest around whose top the fiercest lightnings were to blaze and whose trunk was destined to be shivered in the earthquake shocks of war.

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"Reminiscences Of The Civil War", (Chapter I)
By John B. Gordon, Maj. Gen. CSA
Source

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

If I did it isn't based upon your argument.
They started to secede before Lincoln was even inaugurated. Therefore, the argument that they seceded because of abuses falls flat.Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861, the Confederate Constitution was adopted on March 11, 1861. How much abuse could have happened in that week?The cry we hear from Confederate apologists is states rights. If that is so why does CSA Constitution not substantially increase the rights of states?

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

They are claiming states rights issues. The exact Constitution just invites the same abuses. Doesn't add up.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

They were claiming states rights abuses by the current system. Does it seem logical to institute basically the same system that lead to "abuses"?What were all of these abuses? Lincoln went into his presidency calling for stopping the spread of slavery not the abolition. What were the abuses other than things related to slavery? This argument only works if there was a particular thing they felt caused "abuse" of the Tenth amendment. If it was truly an overarching "abuse" of states rights, then they should have wanted to implement plans to prevent anything similar from happening in the future. They did not. Also, their Constitution restricts states rights more than The US Constitution in places.
Did you look at the side by side comparison on the link Dr. A provided? CSA ConsitutionSome important points where there are less states rights in CSA.

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The Confederacy explicitly declares that only citizens of the CSA can vote in elections. In the USA the individual states have the power to decide voter eligibility, so already here's one power that the supposedly more pro-"states' rights" Confederacy is actually taking away...

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The CSA clarifies that state legislatures will appoint senators at the last session before the Senator's term expires.

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This prevented state legislatures from appointing a "reserve" senator to wait in the wings until the incumbent guy left office, as was common in some American states. ..

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The CSA adds a disclaimer that the state legislatures are bound by the federal constitution when creating rules for elections to the Senate and House. This evokes Section 2(1) of the Confederate constitution, which demands that states only grant voting rights to citizens. ..

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The Confederate Congress gains the power to meddle in the free-trading between the states by imposing tariffs on certain states' exported goods. ..

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Overall, the CSA constitution does not radically alter the federal system that was set up under the United States constitution. It is thus very debatable as to whether the CSA was a significantly more pro-"states' rights" country (as supporters claim) in any meaningful sense. At least three states rights are explicitly taken away- the freedom of states to grant voting rights to non-citizens, the freedom of states to outlaw slavery within their borders, and the freedom of states to trade freely with each other.

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States only gain four minor rights under the Confederate system- the power to enter into treaties with other states to regulate waterways, the power to tax foreign and domestic ships that use their waterways, the power to impeach federally-appointed state officials, and the power to distribute "bills of credit." When people champion the cause of reclaiming state power from the feds, are matters like these at the tops of their lists of priorities?

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As previously noted, the CSA constitution does not modify many of the most controversial (from a states' rights perspective) clauses of the American constitution, including the "Supremacy" clause (6-1-3), the "Commerce" clause (1-8-3) and the "Necessary and Proper" clause (1-8-18). Nor does the CSA take away the federal government's right to suspend habeus corpus or "suppress insurrections."

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As far as slave-owning rights go, however, the document is much more effective. Indeed, CSA constitution seems to barely stop short of making owning slaves mandatory. Four different clauses entrench the legality of slavery in a number of different ways, and together they virtually guarantee that any sort of future anti-slave law or policy will be unconstitutional. People can claim the Civil War was "not about slavery" until the cows come home, but the fact remains that anyone who fought for the Confederacy was fighting for a country in which a universal right to own slaves was one of the most entrenched laws of the land.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

This is where the argument fails. They are sure of abuses before they happen so they secede. Now the argument for states rights abuses would hold some weight if they were subjected to "abuses" before they seceded. So you agree that at the time they had no legitimate reason for seceding on the states rights issue. This again shows that the states right argument is just a thinly veiled covering of slavery being the issue. Is it much different than ID and Creationism?This should be 1865.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Why do you think Artemis gave up because of frustration? What would he have to be frustrated about?This thread was started so that he could defend his assertions and his spurious quotes about the cause of the Civil War. He has provided no evidence to support the Robert E. Lee quote and has provided little to no evidence for his other assertions. All he has done is make more assertions. He has not made a rebuttal to arguments in 40 posts. Maybe he is gathering evidence to support his assertions. I hope so. Because his last post ended with uncalled for abusive language toward another poster.
If he continues in that vein I do not want him contributing at all. When a poster resorts to the attacks like Artemis made it is usually a pretty good sign that they have noting to defend there assertions with.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Which is not a US legal document. Therefore, there is nothing in the US Constitution or US law that authorizes secession.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

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Everyone agreed that states had certain rightsbut did those rights carry over when a citizen left that state? The Southern position was that citizens of every state had the right to take their property anywhere in the U.S. and not have it taken awayspecifically they could bring their slaves anywhere and they would remain slaves. Northerners rejected this "right" because it would violate the right of a free state to outlaw slavery within its borders. Republicans committed to ending the expansion of slavery were among those opposed to any such right to bring slaves and slavery into the free states and territories. The Dred Scott Supreme Court decision of 1857 bolstered the Southern case within territories, and angered the North.

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Another way that the states rights argument fails. In order to promote slavery, the southern states had no problem in infringing on the rights of northern states to make slavery illegal. As said before, no where in US jurisprudence does this right exist. It was clearly a smoke screen to attempt to cover the real issue.Just felt a commentary was needed for the wiki info.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts