George Templeton Strong Quotes

Bragg and other Southerner leaders had an unusual concept of equality. Ever since the original Constitution, Northerner’s votes counted for themselves only while a single Southerner’s vote counted for all his slaves as well. So the individual Southerner always had more political power than his Northern counterpart. However, this notion of equality reached it’s acme when it came to the new territories. The Southern argument was that Southerners could not equally prosper in the new territories of Kansas and Nebraska if they could not bring their slaves to work the land. The thought that Southerners were equally able to personally work the new lands or pay labor seems to never have occurred to them. If Northerners could prosper that way then Southerners should be equally able to do so also. However, many Southern whites simply could not conceive of a “gentleman” working in the fields. Therefore they would not be equally able to prosper in the new territories.

The words are those of President Andrew Jackson. See {604550}. After occupying New Orleans, General Butler infuriated the Confederate Sympathizers with this act. Jackson was the hero of the Battle of New Orleans and an unapologetic slave owner. The Southerners had erected a magnificent statue of their hero Jackson on horseback in a major section of the city. Butler, then ordered that the Jackson quotation be chiseled in the stone base. The townspeople were furious that this Union General would make up words and attribute them to Jackson; however, when they finally realized that Jackson had actually said those words they felt even more humiliated. There are still a few Southernors who consider this terrible insult to the Confederacy, and of course that is just what Butler intended.

The amendments failed as did the compromise.

Fortunately he was wrong, but the threat of a breakup of the American Union intimidated most members of Congress to avoid anything that would offend a state or group of states. Thus slavery became more and more entrenched till it exploded into the Civil War. At the time the issues of contention included the fact that Louisiana was primarily Roman Catholic and ALL other states were majority Protestant. The territory functioned under French Law—the Napoleonic Code, while all the other states operated under the English Common Law (even today this is so), and there was concern with the French and Creole language and whether the Creoles would fit into American Culture.

1st Viscount Lyons

The South had attacked Fort Sumter

In many respects, it is amazing that secession did not take place earlier.

After the Presidential years of James Buchanan who protected the South from slavery reform and abolition as the North was gaining political power and the abolitionists were having a greater and greater effect on public opinion in the North. While Southerners did not believe Lincoln would emancipate the slaves, they realized that the majority of the growing nation was opposed to slavery, and more and more Northern states were passimg laws making any slave who sets foot in the State a free person. Slaves coud not only have more reason to run away, but slave owners would not be able to get their “property” back. Lincoln would not help the South as Buchanan did, and the Southerners realized that over time, slavery would no longer be feasible or profitable. Cobb, very experienced at Washington politics, realized the changes that would come and thought that they would be “certain and speedy.” The irony was that if the South had not seceded and simply dragged its feet legislatively, it would have taken two or three decades for slavery to end. However, by seceding and initially fighting so hard and well while poor Union generals were in command, Lincoln was forced to try more drastic measures and issued the Emancipation Proclamation after only a few years. The Civil War and seccession was not only a tactical and strategic error for the South, but rapidly brought about just what the Southerners were fighting to prevent.

When the first Southern States seceded, each appointed a whose job it was to persuade the other Southern States to also secede. In this case Hale was marketing secession to Kentucky which with Maryland were the only two Southern States to reject what they regarded as treason and rebellion. The importance of the quotation however is in his argument which was all based on enmity to racial equality and abolition. Later Southern apologists would argue that the Civil War was fought, not about slavery and racism butt about different philosophies of government. See {623715} .

Crittendon, at the outbreak of the Civil War, had a Governor who wanted Kentucky to secede and join the Confederacy, but he and other leaders thwarted that and the state legislatures defied the governor and forced him to resign. 16 percent of Kentucky men held slaves and keeping Kentucky and Maryland in the Union was a very high priority for President Lincoln. See {633812}.

He was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time of this speech. Gladstone was certain about most of his views on foreign policy but correct on only some with many blunders on his watch. This view was very important for the Confederacy as it was a prerequisite to diplomatic recognition. The latter never came.

The 10th Amendment reserves powers to the states and limits the Federal Government’s powers. However, there are other clauses in the Constitution, like the Commerce Clause (Article I Section 8), which gives the Federal Government authority and control over Interstate Commerce, which in modern society permeates almost all activities of State government, The result is that the federal government / state government power division has been a political issue and not really a constitutional one. At the time Republicans advocated a literal 10th Amendment interpretation and the Democrats favored a stronger Federal Government with more authority and power as stated by the Commerce Clause. Roy had been trying to explain to his fellow Republican strategists that it is hard to attract Blacks to the remainder to the Republican Platform as long as they were insensitive to what the 10th Amendment meant to Blacks historically. The Southern states cited the 10th Amendment more than any other part of the constitution to justify their right to maintain slavery. It was the Federal Government that ended slavery. Under the rubric of the 10th Amendment the South managed to get rid of most of the racial civil rights Reconstruction reforms that were imposed by the Federal Government on the Southern States. And it was the 19th Amendment that was the authority for Segregation for 100 years. And the terrorism of the Klu Klux Klan and the lynching and terror imposed on Blacks by Southern states claiming the 10th Amendment right to do so. Finally, it was the Federal Government, overriding the 10th Amendment with the Commerce Clause and other parts of the Constitution that passed and enforced the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Desegregation and the end to Lynching and other Southern State-Sponsored terrorism. Blacks will not any time soon accede to having the 10th Amendment literal view of the role of government and if Republicans insist on that there would continue to be very few Black Republicans,

As just one example of Southern States' reasons, see {583044}. Many of the Northern States had passed laws declaring everyone in the state was free and making it illegal to return or assist in the returning of escaped slaves. The Southerners got the Federal Fugitive Slave Act passed which required all Americans to assist in recapturing escaped slaves. It was the Northern States who claimed states' rights were being trampled. The South was vehemently opposed to States' Rights when it came to allowing individual states to decide who was free and who was not. The Southerners had only one fundamental reason for secession—the maintenance of the Negro slavery system on which much of their economy depended as did their sociology, culture, and way of life.

While Douglas and Lincoln were political opponents with little love lost between them, both were patriots. And Douglas was committed to seeing that Lincoln was inaugurated and the Union preserved, if Lincoln won the election. When Lincoln did so, Douglas traveled throughout the South trying to persuade Southerners to stay in the Union. See {584870}.

Lincoln did not believe that the South would secede.

It would be almost 30 years until Jackson would have been proved correct and the Civil War had begun.

Gusley had been captured by the Confederates and was in a prison camp. Richardson published Gusley’s diary and Southerners were surprised to find that this Yankee who had been bombarding them from a ship was very similar to them in many ways including slavery but saw the situation regarding succession as worth fighting for preservation of the Union.