A lot of this is made up of facts I know, but the framework and perspective is somewhat new to me, and fascinating Lectures in History - Reconstruction & America's Story on Stitcher Essentially, we're not - or at least the values we profess are not - actual those of the Founding generation. Rather, government as the Founders intended it was almost entirely compatible with the Confederacy, and in effect, Lincoln defeated and the Radical Republicans effectively buried the form of government created in the 18th century and replaced it by force with a different one. Except that the Reconstruction founding wasn't fully realized for a hundred years, and then only briefly - which is to say that the sort of "all men are created equal" ideals, as realized by Lincoln is what we tell ourselves we are (even though we falsely attribute that sentiment to the Founders) but for most of our history it's not what we've actually been, and THAT is the great contest of worldviews in this country.
The CRT it burns! It will destroy the world and all that Federal Farmer holds dear. UA will not be able to get an election in his brokedick jeep ever again if you keep spraying us with that shit. Oh, please carry on.
Lincoln said the exact opposite - that he was fulfilling the Founders vision of the slow demise of slavery, utilizing the blueprint they drew. Where did he learn this concept? John Quincy Adams, who mentored him during his brief stay in Congress. Many historians attribute the foundation of the Emancipation Proclamation to Adams, who of course was a President, the son of a the 2nd President, and one of if not the greatest Secretary of State in US history - and a 14 year member of the House and 6 year member of the Senate. What's more, Alexander Stephens, the Vice President of the CSA, stated that the one place they differed from the Founders was openly stating that slavery was the cornerstone of their Confederacy. To wit: "Another grand difference between the old and new Constitution was this, said Mr. Stephens, in the old Constitution the Fathers looked upon the fallacy of the equality of races as underlying the foundations of republican liberty. Jefferson, Madison, and Washington, and many others, were tender of the word Slave in the organic law, and all looked forward to the time when the Institution of Slavery should be removed from our midst as a trouble and a stumbling block. This delusion could not be traced in any of the component parts of the Southern Constitution. In that instrument we solemnly discarded the pestilent heresy of fancy politicians, that all men, of all races, were equal, and we had made African inequality and subordination, and the equality of white men, the chief cornerstone of the Southern Republic." If he's talking about incorporation then that is true, that wasn't the vision of many of the Founders, but the US had been marching down that road since the inception. The Anti-Federalists lost hard, the SCOTUS continuously backed the supremacy clause, and the individual legislatures moved toward democracy and away from rule by the state congresses.
all I would say in response is that the professor is postulating that Lincoln and others were ACTUALLY doing things other than what they said or thought they were doing.
I'm with Demiurge on this one, I don't buy it. The founding generation saw slavery as an evil that couldn't endure, and they would have been horrified by the moralizing arguments made by the confederacy.
I would have to say in this case it was probably both considering it is highly unlikely there was a singular agenda. I would say the probability that it skewed far more towards pro-slavery is more likely true as people tend to impose their morals onto their ancestors especially when they are a part of the same nation or group. Then again, I am an actual cynic.
Eh, it depends upon who you're talking about. Some were utterly opposed to it, others thought that they could get rid of it the same way The Bobs thought that they could get rid of Milton. Still others were all in favor of it, and even some of those would have found a way to entrap select slaves even if the practice had been outlawed. If slavery had been outlawed any time after his wife died, you can bet your ass that Jefferson would have made sure he kept Sally Hemmings.
the state's right to have slavery, as emancipation wasn't in the first draft of the war of southern sedition. somehow that's supposed to be a meaningful distinction.
The right of the states to self govern as well as economic concerns such as the Morill Tariff, the refusal of northern states to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act which agreed upon in The Compromise of 1850, and the election of Abraham Lincoln is a more nuanced description of what started the civil war, but the victors get to write the history books and spread propaganda.
if states are free to govern themselves without federal undermining, than there is logically no obligation on non slaving states to enforce the FSA. at the end of all the sovereignty claims, it still boils down to wanting the ability to own human beings.
And why were they upset about the election of Abraham Lincoln. Using their own words, what was their biggest issue with him?
Didn't say the Federal government couldn't act. The constitution is clear on what the federal government can and can't do. The Compromise of 1850 was an agreement/compact agreed upon by northern states, southern states were right to want the FSA enforced. You don't get to break a contract without consequences.
Holy shit. They were right to want it enforced? A law that required people to participate in returning human beings to enslavement, and they were right to want it enforced? The fuck? Some contracts are unenforceable, and that includes ones that involve a blatant moral wrong. If you lend me money and I sign a contract that says you get to kill me if I don't pay it back, and you do it, you're still gonna get charged with murder, contract be damned. The Fugitive Slave Act required people to commit a blatant moral wrong, and people who refused to comply with were 100% in the right.
How would you rank the relative importance of those things? Hint: We have ample primary sources to rely on.
I’m not talking about morality, I’m talking about contract laws and legality as well agreed upon legislation.
didn't suggest the Fed couldn't act, but that they weren't obligated to over ride a state's right to likewise choose. and yeah, how'd that consequence meting out go for the traitor states again?
it's logically consistent though... the expectation that one side's "rights" will supercede that of another by virtue of threat of force.
I think that there's a gap between what the founders thought of themselves and their ethical agenda as it would be applied "in the field" vis-a-vi slavery... and how it ended up actually working out per the actual text. It's not necessary to assume they thought slavery would endure another 70 years and be in many ways the economic engine of the country - likely they didn't because that sort of dominance wasn't really possible until the not-yet-invented cotton gin - to concede that what they wrote, even if inadvertently, ended up enabling it.
Hence my mention of primary sources, which enable us to learn what was important to people at the time.
