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War of Southern Rebellion
May. 4th, 2016 09:56 amI suppose I should say something pithy about the results of last night's primaries in Indiana, but I don't really have anything. Trump won big as expected, Sanders won narrowly as not expected, but the only change was Cruz recognizing the inevitable. So I'll talk about something else, namely history.
A commentor on another post suggested I said that "(the War of Southern Rebellion was fought for the purpose of freeing black slaves)." No, actually not. The South left the Union and tried to steal Federal property on the way out (Fort Sumter, the Navy in Norfolk). The South left because the North was not sufficiently supportive (in the South's view) of slavery. See the South Carolina Declaration of Secession.
There were a variety of attitudes in the North with regards to slavery, including freedom. The majority position, however, coalesced around keeping slavery out of the north. The working man didn't want to compete with slave wages, and the wealthier classes didn't want to worry about slave revolts.
The man who did the most to actually free slaves was Benjamin Butler. He was a politician who'd used pull to get himself a brigadier general's commission in the state militia, which he parlayed into a major general's post in the Union army. He was incompetent as a general, even by the somewhat lax standards of the time.
But Butler was a sharp lawyer, and when three escaped slaves showed up at his command at Fort Monroe, he refused to return them to their masters. Since the slaves had been employed in building Confederate fortifications, he felt returning the slaves would be the same as handing back guns to the enemy. After some to-and-fro, this became official policy, and the Union army took to paying, feeding and employing former slaves in their camps.
This same logic came to be used to support the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, which only freed slaves in areas "people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States."
In any event, the South, by demanding extension of slave-holders' rights into the North, precipitated a series of events that ended slavery everywhere. The moral of the story is that sometimes it is much better to take half a loaf than to demand the whole thing.
A commentor on another post suggested I said that "(the War of Southern Rebellion was fought for the purpose of freeing black slaves)." No, actually not. The South left the Union and tried to steal Federal property on the way out (Fort Sumter, the Navy in Norfolk). The South left because the North was not sufficiently supportive (in the South's view) of slavery. See the South Carolina Declaration of Secession.
There were a variety of attitudes in the North with regards to slavery, including freedom. The majority position, however, coalesced around keeping slavery out of the north. The working man didn't want to compete with slave wages, and the wealthier classes didn't want to worry about slave revolts.
The man who did the most to actually free slaves was Benjamin Butler. He was a politician who'd used pull to get himself a brigadier general's commission in the state militia, which he parlayed into a major general's post in the Union army. He was incompetent as a general, even by the somewhat lax standards of the time.
But Butler was a sharp lawyer, and when three escaped slaves showed up at his command at Fort Monroe, he refused to return them to their masters. Since the slaves had been employed in building Confederate fortifications, he felt returning the slaves would be the same as handing back guns to the enemy. After some to-and-fro, this became official policy, and the Union army took to paying, feeding and employing former slaves in their camps.
This same logic came to be used to support the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, which only freed slaves in areas "people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States."
In any event, the South, by demanding extension of slave-holders' rights into the North, precipitated a series of events that ended slavery everywhere. The moral of the story is that sometimes it is much better to take half a loaf than to demand the whole thing.
