HopefulCynic:

To say nothing of the cost [of imposing socialism] in social strength, goodwill, and bloodshed.

Correct. Also not to mention the effect on the economy, which, as with any attempt to centrally plan and control in detail a chaotic system, would be disastrous.


I posited that extreme only to illustrate the breadth of the commerce clause as written, not because I think it would be a good idea. I don't think we should go socialist or that we will, but under the law we could if we wanted.

Pat Mathews asks... Is there in fact any legal way to secede or dissolve a political union? Or even to change the form of that union once it's established? The Dakotas, the Virginias and the Carolinas were once one territory that divided up into 2 states- if they wanted to combine into Dakota, Virginia or Carolina again, is there a way to do that? If Puerto Rico becomes a State, is that joining permanent? If California north of Bakersfield decides to form it's own state of Northern California - is that possible?

Lincoln's argument that succession is illegal is very questionable. It is based on the Constitution's preamble, which is a non-binding statement of purpose with no force of law. Basically, if the Constitution formed a more perfect union, the union is perfect, and no perfect union can or ought to be dissolved. There are a bunch of counter arguments. By the 9th (10th?) Amendment, any power not explicitly listed in the Constitution is reserved to the People and the States. The power to secede or dissolve the Union is not mentioned in the Constitution. Thus, it is reserved to the People and the States. Most of the southern legislatures called for constitutional conventions whose elected representatives voted for secession. By all legal precedent save argument by superior firepower, the South was legally correct in their legal procedure.

In general, as the Constitution was carefully written to preserve slavery, the South was legally correct in most of the discussions at the time, while the North was morally correct in denouncing slavery.

Also, while the northern states were bound by constitutional law to enforce the fugitive slave law, the policy of "jury nullification" allowed 12 men to vote "not guilty" if they felt a law unjust or a just law resulted in an injustice in a specific case. The jury system was originally a check on the power of the government to punish the people. It was nearly impossible for a southern slave bounty hunter to get a favorable ruling in northern courts. Since this time, the government with an assist from the media and education system have attempted to suppress the doctrine of jury nullification. Judges have attempted to extract oaths from jurors that they will follow instructions. Defense attorneys are prevented from mentioning the doctrine in front of juries. On a few occasions, jurors aware of the doctrine have been threatened with contempt and punishment for arguing "not guilty due to the law being unreasonable."

Just one more example of how judges appointed by politicians are eroding democracy.

Stonewall Patton notes.. This does not change the fact that the tariff had been the most galling and grating of the many issues which divided North and South. Astronomical tariffs in no way benefiting the South had been a thorn in the side for 30-40 years, and of course South Carolina nearly seceded 30 years earlier on the basis of the tariff alone. The tariff just made for a weaker legal argument given that the Southern states had agreed to abide by federal tariffs, no matter how high or low. However there was actual breach of contract with respect to enforcement of the fugitive slave law, and this is why the issue was highlighted.

While tariffs had been an issue a few decades back, the issue was not at all contended in the years leading up to the Civil War. The tariff bills passed essentially unanimously with little to no debate in the years prior to secession. While southern revisionist historians keep bringing up the tariffs as a cause for the war, this is pure (expletive deleted).

On 2001-11-21 13:46, SMA wrote:
Maybe interest in T4T and the theory is a Scandinavian thing, I'm about half-Swedish, too. Uff-da uff-da! Swedish pancakes with lingonberries, anyone?

Book title I bought once:

"Scandinavian Humor and Other Myths"

What do you call someone of English and Eastern European Jewish ancestry who has nephews and a niece who are Swedish? :grin:

Mr Buttler writes, "In general, as the Constitution was carefully written to preserve slavery..."


This is a false, even in a general sense.

The original census counted "other persons" (slaves) as three-fifths persons for the purposes of apportionment. This having broad conseqences for slave-holding states seeking power in Washington. Hence, the key deal the South made in 1789, when the Constituion was ratified, for it put off the slavery issue for future generations to deal with (as they would have to in order that the South keep pace in Washington 'power-circles' with the North.)

Thus the Constitution was written not to 'preserve slavery,' but to insure that slavery would be eventually overcome by future generations.

And so it was, at the cost of much blood, with the 14th Amendment.

"2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State."

From the "People are the same all over" department:

http://photos.blogspot.com/

A series of photos from liberated Kabul.

Any number of "feminist" groups were screaming for this a few months ago - now they are strangely silent because it is the US that has liberated these people.

"Liberal" should not mean "crazy" and it's the job of real liberals to take back control of their philosophy.

Bush is going after Iraq. Apparently, he will use the wapons of mass destruction but as a pretext for a wide strike.
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/ne...26/ixhome.html

Bush is also going to go after targets in Yemen, Somalia, and Sudan that have been linked to Bin Laden.
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/ne...26/ixhome.html
Bush is seeking the support of the Yemeni president, who is formally an ally of the US, to strike areas in the mountainous interior of the country under the control of a warlord who is sympathetic to Bin Laden. He is also pressuring the Sudanese, who have taken some public steps after 911 to please Washington, to round up the followers of the former speaker of the Parliament who gave Bin Laden shelter for five years. Somalia is in chaos and it is home to Al Qaeda units.

On 2001-11-26 11:16, Jenny Genser wrote:

What do you call someone of English and Eastern European Jewish ancestry who has nephews and a niece who are Swedish? :grin:

Nearly all my ancestors came from England back around the mid 19th century, apart two of my great-grand parents emigrated from County Tipperary in Ireland around 1920.

On 2001-11-26 11:16, Jenny Genser wrote:

On 2001-11-21 13:46, SMA wrote:
Maybe interest in T4T and the theory is a Scandinavian thing, I'm about half-Swedish, too. Uff-da uff-da! Swedish pancakes with lingonberries, anyone?

Book title I bought once:

"Scandinavian Humor and Other Myths"

What do you call someone of English and Eastern European Jewish ancestry who has nephews and a niece who are Swedish? :grin:

American

On 2001-11-26 11:16, Jenny Genser wrote:

What do you call someone of English and Eastern European Jewish ancestry who has nephews and a niece who are Swedish? :grin:

sconic matzoth-lefse?

Stonewall:

Those declarations [of secession] emphasized the Northern states' failure to enforce the fugitive slave law, correct?

They certainly did. That was presented as the sole reason for secession.

That is because this provided the strongest legal argument for secession.

That might be a telling point if the declarations had been legal briefs, but, like the American Declaration of Independence, they were polemics, items of propaganda, designed to appeal not to points of law but to the emotions of readers, to justify their actions in terms of morality not of law.

Unfortunately, the Northern states were obligated to return fugitive slaves under the Constitution, above and beyond the actual congressional act.

Because of the "full faith and credit" clause? That would be a rather novel interpretation of that clause. States today are not generally required to extradite suspects for behavior that would be legal in the extraditing states, are they? Or did you mean something else?

This does not change the fact that the tariff had been the most galling and grating of the many issues which divided North and South.

Hmm. I find this claim usually made by those who wish to justify secession and, as a corrollary, wish to downplay the importance of the slavery issue. But the slavery issue was important. If anything, it was potentially more important to the southern planters than tarriffs. After all, tarriffs merely put them at an economic (and thus political) disadvantage w/r/t northern industrial capitalists. The end of slavery ruined them as a privileged class. Their wealth and power were predicated on slavery.


Nor was their fear that an abolitionist majority was coming ill-founded. While Lincoln's wing of the GOP did not promise to end slavery (indeed, promised not to end it), they did intend to keep slavery out of the western territories and new states. Each new free state meant two new slavery-unfriendly Senators, and one or more Representatives. The election of Lincoln meant that the handwriting was on the wall.


However, you're correct to this extent: slavery wasn't the only issue. It was part of a package of disputes, the underlying cause of which was the industrial revolution, and the growing conflict between the old planter aristocracy and the new mercantile/industrial one. The tarriffs on industrial goods, designed to help American manufacturers, obviously favored the industrialists at the expense of the planters. But that nuisance was nothing compared to the potential catastrophe that emancipation would mean.


It's all in a package. The Civil War was a conflict between two elites. One of these derived its wealth and power from cash crops and needed a stable pool of forced labor -- if not slavery proper, then some form of serfdom. The other derived its wealth from industrial production and needed a dynamic pool of unemployed free labor. Slavery doesn't work well for industrial purposes, since the fluidity of the consumer market requires a degree of flexibility in the size of the work force that is better served when labor is rented by the hour instead of bought by the man.


One benefited from a tarriff structure that protected cash crops and allowed free trade in industrial products (especially farm equipment). The other benefited from a tarriff structure that protected industrial products and allowed free trade in cash crops (especially industrial raw materials, like cotton).


It's all one, as far as I can tell.


Bob Butler:

By the 9th (10th?) Amendment, any power not explicitly listed in the Constitution is reserved to the People and the States. The power to secede or dissolve the Union is not mentioned in the Constitution. Thus, it is reserved to the People and the States.

That assumes that the power to secede or dissolve the Union is a legitimate power in the first place that ought to accrue to any of the above.


The 10A does not cover every conceivable act. For example, nowhere in the Constitution is the federal government empowered to execute U.S. citizens without trial. We do not in consequence assume that the states possess this power. Instead, we regard the power to execute without trial as illegitimate and rightfully belonging to no government, federal or state.


If Lincoln did indeed say that the preamble to the Constitution was what made secession illegal, then he was indeed being rather specious, and I must attribute this to Lincolnesque rhetoric rather than legal argument. The best legal argument is simply the one from precedence, that no federation in history has ever contained a right of secession to its members, and that absent explicit statement to that effect we should assume the Constitution doesn't, either.

On 2001-11-27 16:27, Brian Rush wrote:
Stonewall:

Those declarations [of secession] emphasized the Northern states' failure to enforce the fugitive slave law, correct?

They certainly did. That was presented as the sole reason for secession.

Brian, I took a quick look at those declarations online and they actually cited other reasons as well. South Carolina dwelt on fugitive slaves. Georgia added the tariff and other things. Mississippi dealt with aspects of the whole slavery culture even stating something to the effect that only blacks were suited to work under the hot Southern sun. But beyond these declarations, we know well that many issues were in dispute, not solely fugitive slaves.

That might be a telling point if the declarations had been legal briefs, but, like the American Declaration of Independence, they were polemics, items of propaganda, designed to appeal not to points of law but to the emotions of readers, to justify their actions in terms of morality not of law.

South Carolina's for one was rigidly legal and contained a snap-shot legal history of the state and republic. Morality is founded upon law. You cannot separate the two.

Unfortunately, the Northern states were obligated to return fugitive slaves under the Constitution, above and beyond the actual congressional act.

Because of the "full faith and credit" clause? That would be a rather novel interpretation of that clause. States today are not generally required to extradite suspects for behavior that would be legal in the extraditing states, are they? Or did you mean something else?

You have the right article but the wrong section:

Article. IV.

Section. 2. The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.

A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due. [end]


The third clause was specifically included at the convention to guarantee the return of fugitive slaves. The second clause could be cited as well if the fugitive slave was convicted of a crime.

While Lincoln's wing of the GOP did not promise to end slavery (indeed, promised not to end it), they did intend to keep slavery out of the western territories and new states. Each new free state meant two new slavery-unfriendly Senators, and one or more Representatives. The election of Lincoln meant that the handwriting was on the wall.

Yes, and that Senate balance also affected Southern leverage with respect to the tariff. I am certainly not discounting the importance of slavery to the crisis as it was obviously central. But the accepted history of the victors erases the tariff issue and that is not accurate. Imagine that the price of every manufactured good you buy is artificially jacked up 30 to 60 to 100% with all the benefits going exlusively to, say, Hawaii in no way benefiting you. There was a great deal of resentment here festering over decades.

However, you're correct to this extent: slavery wasn't the only issue. It was part of a package of disputes, the underlying cause of which was the industrial revolution, and the growing conflict between the old planter aristocracy and the new mercantile/industrial one. The tarriffs on industrial goods, designed to help American manufacturers, obviously favored the industrialists at the expense of the planters. But that nuisance was nothing compared to the potential catastrophe that emancipation would mean.

That sums it up completely (and goes beyond the actual declarations of secession).

To Bob Butler: If Lincoln did indeed say that the preamble to the Constitution was what made secession illegal, then he was indeed being rather specious, and I must attribute this to Lincolnesque rhetoric rather than legal argument.

Yes, sort of like the one about the Union predating the individual states. The man was a salesman, not a truth-seeker. I do not see the alleged principles because the man routinely made it up as he went along.

To Bob Butler: The best legal argument is simply the one from precedence, that no federation in history has ever contained a right of secession to its members, and that absent explicit statement to that effect we should assume the Constitution doesn't, either.

Ouch! Well then we better get right down to resurrecting the Sumerian Empire over the entire earth. Who needs those "malcontents" like TJ and the boys who "took their marbles and went home!"

Thank God for the "malcontents" throughout human history. We owe our freedom (what little we have left) to them.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Stonewall Patton on 2001-11-27 19:20 ]</font>

Delsyn, I didn't want you to think I was talking behind your back.
http://fourthturning.com/forums/view...rum=2&start=40

It never ceases to amaze me how, to this day, so many Southerners and Confederate sympathizers continue to feel the need to defend and apologize for wealthy 19th century slaveholders. America would be so much better served if these people would just admit to themselves and to everyone else that yes, the war has been over for 136 years; yes, the South did lose; and, yes, for the sin of slavery Southern states deserved everything they got in that war, and then some.

In regard to the notion that Abraham Lincoln and the original Republican Party of the 1800s were hardly staunch abolitionists and were actually pro-slavery barbarians..... well, perhaps, perhaps not. That issue will likely be debated from now until Kingdom Come. I will say this, however-- there was more than one way to skin a cat (end slavery). How much public support would Lincoln have lost in the North if he had called, in 1861, for a Civil War to end slavery rather than to preserve the Union? For many Northerners slavery was an out-of-sight-and-mind issue, and more than a few would have been content to let the Southern states go their own way (ergo, alot of that spilled Northern blood was justly deserved, too).

Perhaps more importantly, Maryland was still a slaveholding state before and during the Civil War. If Lincoln had gone all-out against slavery from the beginning, and the all-but-certain secession of Maryland had cut off D.C. from the rest of the Union, the war would surely have been lost by the North and the slavery question thus rendered moot. Fighting a war to end slavery wasn't an option, regardless of what Lincoln may have personally wanted to do.

Bottom line, President Lincoln did what he had to do to both preserve the Union and to end slavery. He certainly wasn't the last politician to spout conservative rhetoric only to swing progressive after the election....was he??? :wink: Even before the War, as Brian duly noted, by seeking to block the expansion of slavery into the West the Republicans were setting the stage for eventually ending slavery, even as they disarmed their detractors by claiming to not be against slavery in the South.

Actions, it would seem, do in fact speak louder than words.

On 2001-11-27 22:44, Kevin Parker '59 wrote:
It never ceases to amaze me how, to this day, so many Southerners and Confederate sympathizers continue to feel the need to defend and apologize for wealthy 19th century slaveholders. America would be so much better served if these people would just admit to themselves and to everyone else that yes, the war has been over for 136 years; yes, the South did lose; and, yes, for the sin of slavery Southern states deserved everything they got in that war, and then some.

Mr. Parker, some of the paleo-cons (which I include myself) see the destruction of the Constitutional Republic on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line by the actions of the forces of Progress. I will stop apologizing as soon as the Lincon worshippers stop saying total war was legal and just. I thought the punishiment of sin was the Province of the Diety and not the Federal Government. Mr. Robertson and Mr. Falwell were recently and properly taken to task for thinking on similar lines on the matter of 911 and who deserved what.


Copperheadedly yours, Virgil K. Saari

P.S. You won, might makes right, get over it. HTH

_________________

"I often think it odd that [History] should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention." Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey, Chapter XIV



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Virgil K. Saari on 2001-11-28 07:22 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Virgil K. Saari on 2001-11-28 07:26 ]</font>

Virgil, I have never been a fan of organized political parties and I really wish that the founding fathers would have placed a constitutional ban on them at that start. I have been loathe to identify myself as a loyal member of any political party in our twentieth century configuration however I have always had the sense that, had I lived in the nineteenth century, I could have comfortably called myself a Democrat then, at least from Jefferson to Cleveland. I am a paleo-libertarian and I suspect that the term is synonymous with nineteenth century Democrat.

You are a paleo-conservative and express dissatisfaction with the way Lincoln handled his crisis. Is it fair to say that you would not have been comfortable labeling yourself a nineteenth century Republican had you been alive then? Is there a specific party in a specific period in which you would have felt right at home? Nineteenth century Whig perhaps?

Stonewall, thanks for the reference to Article IV Section 2. That means the northern states were indeed obligated to return fugitive slaves.

Ouch! Well then we better get right down to resurrecting the Sumerian Empire over the entire earth. Who needs those "malcontents" like TJ and the boys who "took their marbles and went home!"

Are you making legal arguments or moral ones? The assertion wasn't that the southern states had a moral right to secede, but that they had a legal right to do so. One can dispute that idea on the grounds of law, without disputing their moral right of secession (though on other grounds, I would do that, too).


Did you not yourself cite a thoroughly immoral and noxious passage of the Constitution requiring states to return fugitive slaves to their owners? And was that not, just the same, the law?


All I'm saying is that I see no basis for a conclusion that a constitutional right to secede existed. I would add that attempting to secede from any government is a grave and serious business likely to provoke lots of bloodshed -- and so the cause had better be worth it before you try.

Brian, I was really just razzing you there since I already knew that we disagreed about secession.

Your morality question is a good one and let me come back to it later when I can give it proper attention.

On 2001-11-28 07:17, Virgil K. Saari wrote:

....I will stop apologizing as soon as the Lincon worshippers stop saying total war was legal and just. I thought the punishiment of sin was the Province of the Diety and not the Federal Government....

Copperheadedly yours, Virgil K. Saari

P.S. You won, might makes right, get over it. HTH

I'm just calling it as I see it, Virgil.

Were all of Mr. Lincoln's actions during the Civil War legal? Probably not -- but so what? The slaveholding plantation owners of 1860 were as evil as today's Taliban. They and everyone who supported them (including many in the North) deserved everything that they got in that war.

Was the War just? You betcha. It was most certainly so from the standpoint of the former slaves in 1865. Looking at the issue as a present-day American, getting rid of slavery was absolutely necessary in order for us to truly become the land of the free and home of the brave. And, in order to form a more perfect union, it was absolutely necessary that the proper noun "United States" be made singular, rather than remain plural as it was pre-1861.

So, One More Time, Mr. Lincoln did what he had to do in the Civil War Crisis. As FDR later did during the Depression/WW2 Crisis. And as Mr. Bush (and/or his successor) soon must during the current Fourth Turning.

BTW, the Deity often does use Governments (Federal and otherwise) as well as individual people (by definition, all sinners), to carry out His wishes. Such was indeed the case during the Civil War.

HTH :smile:

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Kevin Parker '59 on 2001-11-28 18:56 ]</font>

WTF!!?? NOOOO!!!!!

Well, we can gauge our reaction to this bit of news.

http://foxnews.com/story/0,2933,39574,00.html

<font color="blue">
Economic Stimulus to Exclude Congressional Pay Raise?

WASHINGTON ? The same senator who went against the grain on anti-terrorism legislation is now on Congress' back over their annual pay raise, and he wants a vote on the increase to be included in the economic stimulus bill being bandied about in the Senate.

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said Tuesday he would try to force his colleagues to vote this year on whether to accept a $4,900 pay raise. The increase of 3.4 percent would boost congressional salaries to $150,000 a year starting in January.

"I want people to have to vote up or down," said Feingold.

Since 1989, members of Congress have automatically gotten a cost-of-living adjustment unless lawmakers vote against it. Members have allowed the COLA to go into effect two of the last three years.

Usually, opposition to a congressional pay raise is battled out in the Treasury Department legislation that funds the legislative branch, but this year the bill was signed into law without any mention of blocking the raise.

Feingold said that with the economic downturn, the war in Afghanistan and a possible return to deficit spending, it is not appropriate for Congress to put itself first.

He has the agreement of consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who wrote last month to Senate leaders that the "proposed pay grab would be wrong if our nation were at peace, but it is especially undignified and tasteless during this time of trial."

The possibility exists that Congress will get the increase since Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said Tuesday that he has not committed to scheduling debate on the economic stimuluis measure. If a vote is put off until next year, Feingold said he would force a pay raise vote "if that is humanly possible" on other legislation.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.</font>

I just may have found my Grey Champion.

Go, Russ, Go!

:smile:

Kiff '61

On 2001-11-28 14:42, Stonewall Patton wrote:


You are a paleo-conservative and express dissatisfaction with the way Lincoln handled his crisis. Is it fair to say that you would not have been comfortable labeling yourself a nineteenth century Republican had you been alive then? Is there a specific party in a specific period in which you would have felt right at home? Nineteenth century Whig perhaps?

I could have been a Copperhead Democrat in the 1860's {The Constitution as it Is and the Union as it Was}and an Anti-Federalist ala John Taylor of Caroline in the early 19th Century. HTH

Brian, I took a quick look at those declarations online and they actually cited other reasons as well. South Carolina dwelt on fugitive slaves. Georgia added the tariff and other things. Mississippi dealt with aspects of the whole slavery culture even stating something to the effect that only blacks were suited to work under the hot Southern sun. But beyond these declarations, we know well that many issues were in dispute, not solely fugitive slaves.

Where did you find those secession declarations? Are they on-line, or do you have copies of them in your possession? If the later, where did you find them?

On 2001-11-28 18:46, Kevin Parker '59 wrote:

BTW, the Deity often does use Governments (Federal and otherwise) as well as individual people (by definition, all sinners), to carry out His wishes. Such was indeed the case during the Civil War.

HTH :smile:

Perhaps it was His wish; but one might take a look at the St. Petersburg Dialogues by the Savoyard Joseph DeMaistre on the distribution of punishments in this world. HTH

_________________

"I often think it odd that [History] should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention." Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey, Chapter XIV

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Virgil K. Saari on 2001-11-28 20:28 ]</font>

On 2001-11-27 22:44, Kevin Parker '59 wrote:
It never ceases to amaze me how, to this day, so many Southerners and Confederate sympathizers continue to feel the need to defend and apologize for wealthy 19th century slaveholders. America would be so much better served if these people would just admit to themselves and to everyone else that yes, the war has been over for 136 years; yes, the South did lose; and, yes, for the sin of slavery Southern states deserved everything they got in that war, and then some.

I agree that slavery was a monstrous evil. By what external moral authority do you judge that the slaveholders deserved what they got? (Bearing in mind that many of them didn't get off that badly, at that.)

For a modern example of a contentious moral issue, many today regard abortion as an evil equal to or worse than slavery. If they used force to compel its end, would that mean that those they defeated 'deserved' what they got?

Bear further in mind that the main reason the South had a slave-based economy and the North did not was simply that the northern climate, geography, and industrial situation were not such as to lend themselves to it.

The sin of slavery was culpable on both North and South over the course of U.S. history.

In regard to the notion that Abraham Lincoln and the original Republican Party of the 1800s were hardly staunch abolitionists and were actually pro-slavery barbarians..... well, perhaps, perhaps not. That issue will likely be debated from now until Kingdom Come. I will say this, however-- there was more than one way to skin a cat (end slavery). How much public support would Lincoln have lost in the North if he had called, in 1861, for a Civil War to end slavery rather than to preserve the Union? For many Northerners slavery was an out-of-sight-and-mind issue, and more than a few would have been content to let the Southern states go their own way (ergo, alot of that spilled Northern blood was justly deserved, too).

By what external moral authority?

Perhaps more importantly, Maryland was still a slaveholding state before and during the Civil War. If Lincoln had gone all-out against slavery from the beginning, and the all-but-certain secession of Maryland had cut off D.C. from the rest of the Union, the war would surely have been lost by the North and the slavery question thus rendered moot. Fighting a war to end slavery wasn't an option, regardless of what Lincoln may have personally wanted to do.

Bottom line, President Lincoln did what he had to do to both preserve the Union and to end slavery. He certainly wasn't the last politician to spout conservative rhetoric only to swing progressive after the election....was he??? :wink: Even before the War, as Brian duly noted, by seeking to block the expansion of slavery into the West the Republicans were setting the stage for eventually ending slavery, even as they disarmed their detractors by claiming to not be against slavery in the South.

Actions, it would seem, do in fact speak louder than words.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: HopefulCynic68 on 2001-11-28 20:34 ]</font>