Henry David Thoreau Quotes

While England was strongly opposed to slavery, the English textile industry benefited from importing American Southern cotton. So many in England were supportive of the Confederacy.

The Confederates had a strategy of obtaining material assistance, prestige and recognition from England during the civil war. Confederate diplomats reported favorable attitudes of English diplomats. However, Southern leaders were in absolute denial about and insensitive to the revulsion that most of Europe and the sophisticated nations felt about slavery at the time." 1st Viscount Lyons

The nation in 1848 was very polarized over the issue of slavery. Taylor, never even mentioned the subject in his speeches and writings. He reused to answer any questions about the subject or indicate his own views. His strategy worked as the other politicians who took a stand—either way—alienated a large number of voters.

Accusing a candidate who opposed a particular war effort as a traitor and collaborator with the enemy in a campaign worked very well in the 2004 Presidential race where the Republicans painted John Kerry, a war hero, as a traitor and collaborator for opposing the Vietnam War. However, the Republicans had learned the dirty trick in middle of the 19th century from the Democrats when Stephen Douglas accused Abraham Lincoln of selling out his country because Lincoln had opposed the Mexican War. Just as Kerry lost, so did Lincoln in this Senate race, but Lincoln better armed to deal with the attacks, ran for the Presidency two years later.

The sedition to which Senator Davis objected was proposal of Senator John P. Hale's proposal to outlaw pro-slavery mobs in the District of Columbia who attacked abolitionists and their newspapers.

The Mystery was for many years the only Black Newspaper in America.

Fitzhugh was a Southern iconoclast whose view of Northern labor was much like that of Karl Marx but who was an enthusiastic supporter of slavery. Fitzhugh was of the opinion that slavery would be reinstated in the North and his treatise agues for that. More and more intellectual opinion was coming to the conclusion that slavery must be abolished or made universal before Lincoln’s famous statement in his debate against Douglas. Although Northerners and Southerners had come to agree on this point, they disagreed about which alternative would and should prevail.

See {613644} for the earlier decree which this modified.

This is an important quotation because it shows that slavery was the principle reason that the South succeeded and began their rebellion. In the early 20th century, there was a movement to make the Confederacy and the rebellion more noble by promoting the idea that the Civil War was fought by the South for more lofty reasons such as States Rights, Original Construction, different economic philosophies and the like. This was a more noble cause then the right to deny other human beings their rights, to own other human beings who they could beat, torture, sexually use and even murder them was a pretty selfish and demeaning reason to have started a rebellion that would then cost more Americans their lives than any other American conflict. The succession documents and others of the Southern States and the Confederacy make it clear that slavery was THE issue and fleeting references to any of the others were only made to complain about the potential effect on abolition and the refusal of the abolitionist states to cease aiding and protecting fugitive slaves.

Before Wilberforce, British society had never conceived of a world without slavery. It was assumed, unpleasant and cruel that it was, slavery was a part of civilization and much of the world and economy depended upon it. However, Wilberforce changed the way slavery was conceived of --- not necessary any longer and profoundly evil.

The cause of the Civil War was slavery. When the Souh fired on the nation’s army and governmental personal, the secession became treason. So Slavery was the cause of the treason. Douglass argued that if we eliminate slavery, we eliminate the cause of the Treason.