Kwame Nkrumah Quotes
We have seen, in the example of the United States how the dynamic elements within society understood the need for unity and fought their bitter civil war to maintain the political union that was threatened by the reactionary forces.
Kwame Nkrumah, 1909-1972, President of Ghana, Continental Government for Africa
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
It would be almost 30 years until Jackson would have been proved correct and the Civil War had begun.
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.
At the time his Vice President, John C. Calhoun, was expounding a theory of “nullification” by which the states could supersede and nullify federal law in their states. When Jackson finished his toast, it was Calhoun’s turn (See {635896}.) His toast supported the States’ Rights position over the federal government. In those days Presidents and Vice President’s were often political enemies or of opposite parties. The President’s advisors thought that his toast might be misinterpreted. So when they gave the toast to the press as “The Federal Union: It must be preserved.” That was the form in which the press reported the President’s toast and for many years that was the version most quoted even though it was never delivered that way. However Jackson was responsible for both versions.
Urging use of force against the South:
Kwame Nkrumah PC was a Ghanaian politician and revolutionary. He was the first Prime Minister and President of Ghana, having led the Gold Coast to independence from Britain in 1957. An influential advocate of Pan-Africanism, Nkrumah was a founding member of the Organization of African Unity and winner of the Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union in 1962.
