The American Civil War, day by day - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it. Note: nostalgia *is* allowed.
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#14962394
One Degree wrote:The Yankees were fighting for Southern state’s rights? Lmao.
BTW My direct ancestors fought out of Illinois for the North and were almost certainly part of the Underground Railroad, so I have no reason to spread Confederate lies. :)

They must be turning in their fucking graves, One Degree. No offence.
#14962395
Potemkin wrote:They must be turning in their fucking graves, One Degree. No offence.


I doubt it very much. They were Southerners who moved North after freeing their slaves. Most of the family remained in the South, but most freed their slaves and still fought for the South. They obviously were not fighting for slavery. They still dominate a town named after them.
#14962401
One Degree wrote:The Yankees were fighting for Southern state’s rights? Lmao.

No, I never claimed any such thing. They were motivated by the denial of the rights of local communities in the Federal territories. However I will withdraw my previous statement as not properly considered, as the more I think about it, the more I think about the more I feel "A house divided" might have been disingenuous.
#14962402
My only ancestor to fight in the American Civil War was a Corp. in the Confederate Army, died in combat, is buried in Machen Georgia.

Image

We confirmed this for sure fairly recently, confirming the family lore.
#14962404
In North America, Quakers, like other religious groups, were involved in the migration to the frontier. Initially this involved moves south from Pennsylvania and New Jersey along the Great Wagon Road. Historic meeting houses such as the 1759 Hopewell Friends Meeting House in Frederick County, Virginia and Lynchburg, Virginia's 1798 South River Friends Meetinghouse stand as testaments to the expanding borders of American Quakerism.[25] From Maryland and Virginia, Quakers moved to the Carolinas and Georgia. In later years, thkey moved to the Northwest Territory and further west.


I took this from Wikipedia. One of the things I think people may overlook about history.
The Quakers were very influential in abolition of slavery. But as you can see, they expanded through the South. My family like many others in the South had few converts (my direct ancestors did convert) but were still strongly influenced by them. Quakers also had a strong belief in independence of thought. Not only slaves but Southerners deserved to live by their own decisions.
This is why I say my ancestors would not roll over in their graves. They valued all independence and this is what many Southerners fought for.
Quakers were Southerners.
#14962844
November 13, Tuesday

The legislature of South Carolina resolves to raise ten thousand volunteers for defense of the state.
#14962846
Doug64 wrote:The legislature of South Carolina resolves to raise ten thousand volunteers for defense of the state.


Shit escalated quickly, and they didn't even have social media!!!

Pretty incredible if you think about it, how rapidly things progressed.
#14962851
Victoribus Spolia wrote:Shit escalated quickly, and they didn't even have social media!!!

Pretty incredible if you think about it, how rapidly things progressed.

Yeah, that’s one of the things this makes clear—most everyone knew what the stakes were going into the election. In the first week after the election newspapers are taking sides on secession, Buchanan is polling his Cabinet on how to respond, the New York stock exchange is tanking, South Carolina has already arrested a military officer for moving supplies to a more defensible location, called for a secession convention, and now is calling up troops.
#14962855
Doug64 wrote:Yeah, that’s one of the things this makes clear—most everyone knew what the stakes were going into the election. In the first week after the election newspapers are taking sides on secession, Buchanan is polling his Cabinet on how to respond, the New York stock exchange is tanking, South Carolina has already arrested a military officer for moving supplies to a more defensible location, called for a secession convention, and now is calling up troops.


Atleast this tells us we aren't quite there yet, even with our internal divisions; though we all know things are worsening with the divide. I'd put us at about 1845. :lol:
#14962856
Victoribus Spolia wrote:Atleast this tells us we aren't quite there yet, even with our internal divisions; though we all know things are worsening with the divide. I'd put us at about 1845. :lol:

Actually, that’s not a bad comparison. Things are beyond tense, but we haven’t yet had anything like how the Fugitive Slave Act, Senator Douglas and Chief Justice Taney blew things up.
#14962858
In studying my own genealogy from the 1850’s era, I was amazed at the communication of families. They made regular visits to Georgia, Tennessee, Michigan, Iowa,Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri. Ofcouse, this may have been the Underground Railroad in my case. I don’t know, but they were in constant communication. Relatives would go live with one another for awhile. Makes the census confusing for research. Anyway, they communicated a lot more than I imagined in that era.
#14962859
Doug64 wrote:Actually, that’s not a bad comparison. Things are beyond tense, but we haven’t yet had anything like how the Fugitive Slave Act, Senator Douglas and Chief Justice Taney blew things up.


Agreed. Interestingly enough, I think Taney's decision on Dredd Scott was technically a literal constitutionalist ruling. If you define slaves as property, you cannot deprive their masters of them without due process according to the Constitution. He was technically right even if you hold to an abolitionist perspective.

Interestingly enough, this might well happen again. Its looking more and more like we will have a Supreme Court that will be remarkably more conservative than the rest of the population in 20 years and will likely make a ruling that VERY unpopular in spite of being well-reasoned.

How the states will split apart this time around, is an entirely different question altogether.

I for one look forward to this day.

The divorce was declared some time ago and yet we are still dwelling in the same house. Its time to go our separate ways.
#14962874
Victoribus Spolia wrote:Agreed. Interestingly enough, I think Taney's decision on Dredd Scott was technically a literal constitutionalist ruling. If you define slaves as property, you cannot deprive their masters of them without due process according to the Constitution. He was technically right even if you hold to an abolitionist perspective.

No, the Taney court made two huge blunders. If they’d been satisfied with saying that Illinois had a right to declare Scott a free man on account of slavery being illegal in that state but needed some form of due process to achieve that, which Scott’s owner hadn’t received—that Scott could not automatically become free by being brought into the state—they would have been all right. But Taney had to use the opportunity to invent substantive due process by insisting that free states could not free slaves brought within their borders at all.

That was Taney’s first big blunder, the second was a very parochial reading of history—Blacks had been citizens of a number of states at the time the Constitution was raitifed, and became citizens of the new nation. Of course, in this case Taney could have been acting out of ignorance; that particular truth would have been unpalatable to Southerners, or racist Northerners for that matter, and so not likely to be widespread.

Interestingly enough, this might well happen again. Its looking more and more like we will have a Supreme Court that will be remarkably more conservative than the rest of the population in 20 years and will likely make a ruling that VERY unpopular in spite of being well-reasoned.

Depends on how you define “very”—either widespread or deeply resented. Sure, in the future I expect the Supreme Court to make rulings that are very unpopular with a sizable minority or even a small majority of the country. But we’re too closely divided for any ruling to be unpopular with a large majority.

How the states will split apart this time around, is an entirely different question altogether.

I for one look forward to this day.

The divorce was declared some time ago and yet we are still dwelling in the same house. Its time to go our separate ways.

I don’t look forward to the day and am unsure of its possibility, though the Left’s attempt to destroy Kavanaugh’s family has made that seem more likely. Mary Chestnut’s comment after secession of how “we have hated each other so” comes to mind.
#14962882
Doug64 wrote:No, the Taney court made two huge blunders. If they’d been satisfied with saying that Illinois had a right to declare Scott a free man on account of slavery being illegal in that state but needed some form of due process to achieve that, which Scott’s owner hadn’t received—that Scott could not automatically become free by being brought into the state—they would have been all right. But Taney had to use the opportunity to invent substantive due process by insisting that free states could not free slaves brought within their borders at all.


Taney answered that objection though, it was inconceivable that simply crossing the line into a free state magically constitutes a form of due process adequate to freeing the slave in question.

That would be like saying that, in a state that doesn't allow wrist watches, upon crossing through such on a cross-country vacation, the cops could steal that watch without due process because it was magically not my possession given the state's law.

Obviously that is ridiculous.

Doug64 wrote:That was Taney’s first big blunder, the second was a very parochial reading of history—Blacks had been citizens of a number of states at the time the Constitution was raitifed, and became citizens of the new nation. Of course, in this case Taney could have been acting out of ignorance; that particular truth would have been unpalatable to Southerners, or racist Northerners for that matter, and so not likely to be widespread.


But slaves did have a "legal definition" in state laws, and slaves were defined as the property of another.

So long as that is true, given legal precedent at the time, then the ruling was justified. To say the opposite is to say that there were no "slaves" in the U.S. at all as no legal definition existed to recognize such under any courts of the United States, which is simply untrue.

Fact is, crossing a state border does not magically confer due process adequate enough to deprive a person of their property and slaves were legally defined as property.

Taney was right on this.

It was unpopular because chattel slavery was obviously immoral and unpopular, but that does not mean that Taney was poorly reasoned in his decision, his decision was perfectly sensible.

Doug64 wrote:Depends on how you define “very”—either widespread or deeply resented. Sure, in the future I expect the Supreme Court to make rulings that are very unpopular with a sizable minority or even a small majority of the country. But we’re too closely divided for any ruling to be unpopular with a large majority.


Even in 20 years from now?

I do wonder actually.

Doug64 wrote:I don’t look forward to the day and am unsure of its possibility, though the Left’s attempt to destroy Kavanaugh’s family has made that seem more likely. Mary Chesnut’s comment after secession of how “we have hated each other so” comes to mind.


The feelings are becoming palpable. It does seem that people are starting to hate each other in a real tangible manner, and we even have less in common now than northerners and southerners did back then.
#14963295
November 14, Wednesday

Georgia Congressman Alexander H. Stephens, known for his conservative views, speaks to the Georgia legislature at Milledgeville, saying, “Good governments can never be built up or sustained by the impulse of passion....” While the avowed principles of the President-elect are “in antagonism to our interests and rights” and will “subvert the Constitution under which we now live,” the South must not be hasty, he says. He is opposed to secession and calls upon the South to stand upon the Constitution and “Let the fanatics of the North break the Constitution, if such be their purpose.”

At Springfield the influx of politicians seeking office either for themselves or others is rapidly increasing.
#14963664
November 15, Thursday

Major Robert Anderson, First Artillery, receives special orders to proceed to Fort Moultrie at Charleston Harbor and relieve Brevet Colonel John L. Gardner in command. Major Anderson is a native of Kentucky, a graduate of West Point, has seen service in Mexico, and is considered an able officer.

U.S. Navy Lieutenant T. A. Craven informs Washington that due to the “deplorable condition of affairs in the Southern States” he is proceeding to take moves to guard Fort Taylor at Key West and Fort Jefferson on Dry Tortugas, Florida, from possible seizure. (Fort Taylor and the Key West area later become a vital coaling station for the Federal Navy and blockading squadron.)
#14963971
November 16, Friday

President-elect Lincoln writes a Missouri editor, “I am not at liberty to shift my ground—that is out of the question.”

Meanwhile, the question of Cabinet posts in the new administration become of increasing interest. The relatively young Republican party is tasting its first victory and the spoils will be many.
#14964202
Victoribus Spolia wrote:Taney answered that objection though, it was inconceivable that simply crossing the line into a free state magically constitutes a form of due process adequate to freeing the slave in question.

That would be like saying that, in a state that doesn't allow wrist watches, upon crossing through such on a cross-country vacation, the cops could steal that watch without due process because it was magically not my possession given the state's law.

Obviously that is ridiculous.

Only that's not what Taney had said. I wish it had been, it would have been a fine cap to a highly influential career on the Supreme Court. But that isn't what he did. He not only ruled that free states could not free slaves brought across their borders--not that they needed to create a process for freeing the slaves but that they couldn't do it at all, that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional and that the Federal government had no right to prohibit the transfer of slaves into federal territories, and that Blacks were not and never could become citizens of the US.

But slaves did have a "legal definition" in state laws, and slaves were defined as the property of another.

But one state could not impose its own definition of "man as property" on another state, require that a free state recognize a person brought within its borders as property because another state had so ruled. Taney's ruling that states could impose their own definitions on other states was dead wrong--many, many dead wrong, as it turned out.

The feelings are becoming palpable. It does seem that people are starting to hate each other in a real tangible manner, and we even have less in common now than northerners and southerners did back then.

I don't know how that would be measured, for comparison purposes. Not only are the issues nothing like the same, but the sides are much more mixed.
#14964245
@Doug64 said...
I don't know how that would be measured, for comparison purposes. Not only are the issues nothing like the same, but the sides are much more mixed.


Aren’t the arguments today based upon the existence of slavery? I think our problems today are because we try to make them the same when they aren’t. I also don’t know what you mean by “the sides are more mixed”.
A realistic view of this period would totally change the arguments today. As is, they are similar.
Even realizing it is easier for people without slaves to want to free them than it is for a person that has more invested in them than all his other property combined would add some realism today.
You can’t discuss race relations today reasonably when people are convinced slavery was all about hate and that hate remains.
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